Spaceman Spiff: The Alpha Missions
by SergeantLuke
Summary: Everyone knows Spaceman Spiff as the fearless, heroic explorer of the known universe and beyond. But before those days, he was just a bratty kid with big dreams, training to be a member of the elite Space Force!
1. The New Nuisance

Spaceman Spiff: The Alpha Missions

It seemed to be a day like any other. Things were business as usual at the Arpenholl Space Academy's Q-system station – the students were still all lazy arzes, the instructors were still batshiz crazy, and Staff Sergeant Migget Awol still hated his job.

When Sgt. Awol joined the Space Force, he had hoped to become a Starfighter, and defend planet Earth from interstellar invaders. Or maybe a Roamer or Spaceman, and explore mysterious new worlds for the benefit of humanity. Hell, he would've taken a job as an orbit-debris scrubber or a damned station janitor, as long as it didn't involve sitting behind a desk for nearly all hours of the day and reading through an endless supply of application forms. But that was the job he had, and it was the job he was stuck with.

He was reading through an application from a 16-year-old with a history of petty theft (instant disqualification) when his secretary, Zinnel, popped her head through the door.

Ms. Zinnel wasn't of our Earth; she came from some planet in the Annooie system, and thus had spotted brown skin and four eyes. She was still learning English, and had a very meek disposition, so she was always cautious and careful around Awol- especially considering his tendency to get into "moods". Today, he had been filing paperwork for hours, and she knew that job angered him- and she was as quiet and nervous as she could possibly be when she said, "Mr. Awol?"

"What is it Zinnel?" he answered, without even looking up from his work. "Exciting news, I hope? Do I have an assignment?"

"N-no, sir," she stammered. "Y-you haven't had an assignment in y-"

"I know!"he snapped. Zinnel whimpered at this. He continued, "That was a joke. I guess they don't have those where you come from. Now, why are you here?!"

"Um… I just wanted to say that there are people here to see you!"

"People?" Awol groaned. An _in-person _application? These things never turned out well. "Fine. Send them in."

"Y-yessir!" Zinnel responded. She dashed out as quickly as she could.

A minute later, three people entered Awol's office. One of them was a woman, with brown hair and tired-looking eyes; the second was a man, who wore glasses and had a similar expression, and was carrying a briefcase; and the third was a small boy, with spiky yellow hair and green eyes. The boy wore a t-shirt with an old fashioned space shuttle on it, and shoes that looked like fake astronaut boots. He had barely even walked through the door before he loudly asked, "So are you the guy?"

"Spiff, please quiet down and let us do the talking," said the man. Spiff protested, "but Dad!", but his father only shook his head. Dejected, Spiff wandered off into a corner, where he started playing with the desk drawers.

"Uh…" Awol mumbled. He wasn't sure what to say. "Is this about… him?"

"Yes," said Spiff's mother. "He wants to be a Spaceman."

Awol laughed. "Well then you can forget it, pal! We accept young recruits, but not THAT young! How old is he? 10? 6?"

Spiff's parents ignored the question. "I don't think you understand," said his father. "He _really_ wants to be a Spaceman."

"Yeah, and I'd kinda like to be one too. But that's not about to happen! For me, or for- _**HEY!"**_

Spiff had dumped out all of Awol's filing cabinets. "Get away from there, you stupid kid!" cried the Sergeant. He dashed over to the cabinets and snatched Spiff away from them.

"He _REALLY REALLY REALLY wants to be a Spaceman,_" Spiff's mother continued. "It's all he ever talks about. It's all he ever thinks about! It's all _we _ever think about, these days!"

Awol, who was still holding a squirming Spiff in his arms, scoffed. "Yeah?" he asked. "And what do you want me to do about that?"

"To-" Spiff's father took the boy from Awol's arms- "to make him a Spaceman! Or, at least, give him a chance?"

His mother whispered, "and _get him out of our hair?"_

Awol glared at the woman. Then at the man. Then at the boy, who was giving him the "Bambi eyes" and making whimpering noises. Finally, he sighed, put his hand on his hip, and said:

"No. Absolutely not."

The parents groaned, and began to take something out of the Dad's briefcase. Spiff stamped his foot. "Come on! I sat in a three-hour starship ride to get here! Mom and Dad said I could be a Spaceman if I just tried hard enough, and now YOU come in and tell me I can't? Who are you, anyway?!"

Awol was much offended. That comment hit a little too close to home. "I am Staff Sergeant Migget Awol, you little punk! And you'd better start respecting your authority-" Suddenly, he quieted.

In the shared arms of Spiff's parents was the briefcase, now opened to reveal that it contained an incredible amount of money. Awol guessed that it was around $5,000,000 unidollars. Asked Spiff's dad, "will this be enough?"

Sgt. Awol was not corrupt, but he didn't mind accepting a little extra cash for his troubles.

For a short while after that, the office was quiet. The parents left in record speed, without even saying a word to their son, and Awol was oddly unnerved as he watched their spaceship leave the dock. He felt as if he had made a very bad choice. After a few minutes of consideration, he finally realized why: accepting the application of a small child, without any extensive review of his abilities, would surely result in hours of paperwork for him. And, of course, he would have to find some explanation for the $5,000,000.

His attention returned to the boy. He had resumed his uninvited exploration of Awol's office, and was currently fiddling with a lamp. "About time they left!" Spiff remarked. "My parents are so stupid. They never let me get a word in. They think I'm annoying or something dumb like that!" He chuckled, then walked away from the lamp and back towards Awol, scratching an itch.

"Anyway, when do I start?"

Awol narrowed his eyes. "Start what?"

"You know, becoming a Spaceman! When do I get to have those big weapons, and the cool gadgets, and the awesome spaceship I get to have all to myself?"

The Sergeant made a very angry face, and a noise that sounded almost like growling. "You have no idea how much training you have to go through, little punk. First, you have the basic tests. Then, once you inevitably fail them all, you've got months of training ahead of you, and that's _if _the Academy heads even agree to keep you. And even if you ever pass the test, you've got the Final Test, and then you'll be placed on the waiting list, and then…"

…But the boy had long since lost interest. He was walking over to the refrigerator that Awol kept near his desk. "Say, what kind of stuff do you have in here?" he asked, grabbing an unopened bottle of whiskey.

"Hey – GIVE me thaaaat!" shouted Awol. "I don't really know how old you are, but you're definitely too young for this stuff!"

"My age is none of YOUR business, MIGGET!" Spiff countered. "What kind of a name is 'Migget', anyway? It sounds like some kind of chicken! Hahaha!"

"It's a family name! Going back generations! Don't insult my great-great-great, uh, great-great grandfather!"

"I'll do whatever I want! My parents are gone now!" Spiff screamed in an even whinier and more high-pitched tone.

Awol was plenty steamed now. He was about to enter another one of his "moods" before his office door opening suddenly distracted him.

On the other side was Zinnel again. She'd heard the shouting, and was even more nervous than usual. "Uh, Sergeant? That kid is a new trainee, right?"

Awol was briefly at a loss for words, quite embarrassed. He then stammered for a minute before finally saying, "Yes, he is. What about it?"

Zinnel gulped. "W-w-welllllll…ll… I don't want to insult your intelligence, Sergeant, but…"

"But…?!"

"…Well, n-new trainees have to be taken to the testing areas as soon as possible, sir. You can't just keep him here."

Awol turned very red. He knew that. He should have remembered. "Yes, of course! Of course. Thank you, Zinnel. I'll take him to- to-"

He cursed to himself and brushed past his secretary, running down the corridor. He was chasing Spiff, who had already run toward the testing area, unable to contain his excitement.

Awol was regretting his decision already!


	2. Target Practice

By the time Awol had caught up to him and grabbed him, they had basically already arrived at the docking station. The station was the only way to get to the training areas, which were located on a small satellite that orbited the station.

Awol was giving Spiff a mighty scolding. "Never run from a superior again, you hear me?! Even if it's a situation like this, with a known destination and all, it's very impolite! You'll get a demerit!"

"I go where I want to go!" Spiff butted in, in his typically rude way. "That's the way of the Spaceman!"

Awol scowled. "You don't know anything about being a Spaceman." He said nothing more.

Once the transport ship arrived, Spiff and some other trainees were guided into a special room, while Awol sat in the standard passenger area. The trainees were asked a series of questions, and then given attire and equipment that suited them; Spiff was fitted with a blank white, skintight spacesuit, with simple round goggles that fit over the eyes. None of his ensemble was at all interesting or heroic looking, but then, what would you expect a trainee to look like? Spiff, for one, could not WAIT to upgrade to that awesome Spaceman outfit.

The trip barely even lasted 3 minutes before the ship arrived at the training areas. Awol pushed and shoved his way through the crowd to exit as soon as he possibly could; he was eager to get this whole mess over with.

Spiff was, seemingly, nowhere to be found. Though the other trainees were all either mingling or heading off to their training area, the wannabe Spaceman was not among them. After a few minutes of searching the premises, cursing to himself all the while, Awol finally found him in Row 5, where the Roamers practiced. Spiff had his face pressed against the glass window, staring, in utter awe.

"C'mon, Spiff!" yelled Awol. He added under his breath, "idiot…"

"…"

"…Spiff?"

"SPIFF!"

Spiff jumped back in embarrassment. He couldn't help it! The Roamers were just too cool looking!

_But I've got to stay alert!, _he thought to himself. _ A true Spaceman is always aware of everything at all times! That's what I must do to become one! _"Yes sir, Migget! I'm coming!"

Awol sighed. There was no point in reminding Spiff to call him "Mr. Awol", he could already tell that his mind was made up.

Awol led Spiff into one of the many doors on the side of a large silver building. "Alright, kid, the first test is aiming skills. All you need to do is hit as close to the bull's-eye as you can on…" Awol flipped a switch on a control panel, causing a simple round target to appear. "…This target. You'll be using this." He opened a drawer next to the control panel, took out a small pistol, and handed it to Spiff.

The boy was ecstatic. "Woo-hoo! All right! Is this one of those Napalm Neutralizers? I've been wanting to get my hands on this baby for a long time!"

"No way!" exclaimed Awol. "We wouldn't trust a first-time user like you with even a lowest-level weapon. That thing just fires an ordinary laser light."

Spiff sunk a little bit. "Aww… Oh well, it looks cool."

Awol was getting impatient. "Are you ready yet? Test begins in five seconds!" He pushed a button on the control panel, which read "Begin Round One". Spiff quickly took a fighting stance, holding his blaster in a surprisingly professional-looking way. The moment the buzzer sounded, Spiff fired.

Awol blinked. According to the computer, Spiff had hit the bull's-eye dead center. _Must be a lucky fluke, _he thought. "Round two!"

Two more targets appeared alongside the first. Spiff fired his shots again, and Awol blinked again. He had hit two targets perfectly, only barely missing the center of the third, and in only three shots. That was… surprisingly above average. The kid probably played a lot of darts at home or something like that. Nothing a little moving target action won't fix.

"Round Three… GO!"

The targets, of which there were now six, moved in small, programmed motions. Once again, not long after the buzzer sounded, Spiff had managed to hit a spot on every single target, without wasting a single shot.

Awol was getting desperate. No matter what he threw at Spiff, the kid excelled. He added targets that moved randomly, he added targets that needed two shots to register, he added targets that removed points when shot, he added targets that fired back – but somehow, _nothing _could stop Spiff. At the end of the testing session, Spiff had made 30 bull's-eyes, 76 hits in other sections of the target, 12 misses, and 2 demerits.

There was no denying it: for some unfathomable reason, this kid was really, really good at shooting.

"WOOOOOOOOO HOO! Wasn't I totally awesome, Migget?! I told you I ruled! How many more of these do I have to do before I'm a Spaceman?

The Sergeant grabbed the boy and dragged him toward the next area. "Hmph! We're far from done here. That was only the first section. Let's see how you handle agility!" Awol knew that there was no way Spiff could match the prowess of the other trainees, who were all several years older than him and had more developed bodies.

And he was right – the boy couldn't_ match_ the abilities of his peers. But he came _incredibly_ close, and definitely exceeded the expectations of a boy of his age and body type. If he kept up the good work, by the time he was the age of the other young soldiers-to-be, he'd be far stronger than they could ever hope to be.

And so it went on – with each testing section, Spiff proved to be more and more formidable. He excelled in every area. He was an expert at identification of plants and animals. He had an innate understanding of various spaceship controls, although he did have difficulty flying them. He was able to give the names and specifications of every single gadget that the Space Force had. It was just as Spiff's mother had said: he was absolutely obsessed with becoming a Spaceman.

Awol was furious. There was no way anyone would want to get rid of this kid now. The higher-ups would love him, both for his skill and for the prestige he'd bring to the school if he became well-known. It looked as if Awol would be stuck babysitting the snotty brat for years to come.

Until he noticed what Spiff's last test was: Teambuilding.

Normally, a trainee as new as Spiff would be given an extra week to hone their individual skills before they entered the more advanced group portion, but this rule could be waved if the trainee proved to be exceptional, and Spiff certainly was. The goal in Teambuilding exercises was, obviously, to foster teamwork and trust of others in a soldier, and even though there were divisions of the Space Force that did not require partners (such as Spiff's desired Spaceman position), a trainee was still expected to pass the test in order to move on to rookie status.

Awol looked over at Spiff, who was quietly twirling his gun around with his fingers and singing a song about his awesomeness, and knew that there was no way he'd survive in a team situation. It was all about him, and the judges of the Teambuilding VR missions would surely realize that.

"Hey, Spiff," called the Sergeant, "come along with me. You're really something, little… _buddy. _It's getting late. For now, I'll take you to your dorms."

"Sure, whatever!" responded Spiff. He struck a heroic stance as he marched behind Awol. "I can't wait to meet my fellow trainees. I bet they'll run home crying the minute they see how great I am!"

"Absolutely!" said Awol. He added in a whisper to himself, "But _you're_ the one who'll be running home crying."


	3. Meet the Team

Awol was dragging Spiff through the dormitories at such a speed that the kid was barely even being dragged- it was more like he was billowing in the wind. The Sergeant had spent the last 5 hours looking after Spiff, and he was going to spend the _next _5 hours filling out his mountains of paperwork. He didn't want a second of it to go to any further waste.

"7-555… 7-556… 7-557… 7-558! Finally!"

The door of room 7-558 was flown open so quickly that Spiff barely had time to react before he was violently shoved into it by his superior.

"You'll stay here," said Awol, "until you and your teammates' trials tomorrow."

"Whatever you say, Migget," said Spiff. He turned from Awol and quickly scanned the room. It was pretty barebones: the walls, ceiling, and floor were all painted a garish shade of light green, with a window on the far wall, looking out into the regions of space. The only furniture was a tall dresser and three beds: a middle-sized bed in the back of the room, a small bed in the front of the room, and a bunk bed between the two.

Also inside the dorm room were three young boys, staring back at Spiff. They were all older than Spiff, and none of them seemed especially pleased to see him.

The first boy, who sat on the bunk bed's top mattress, was very tall, even taller than Awol, with spiky hair much like Spiff's, but darker, and an annoyed scowl on his face.

The second boy had large, extremely expressive eyes that took up almost half of his face, very light blond hair (blonder than Spiff himself), a small round nose, and was about 6 inches taller than Spiff. He sat on the bottom mattress.

The third boy was practically the opposite of the first: extraordinarily short, with combed-back brown hair, glasses, and an overbite. It was immediately evident that he was quite shy: he was sitting in the far back of the room, on the edge of the middle-sized bed, and his expression made it look like he was actually _afraid _of Spiff.

"Well, doesn't this look like a motley crew?"Spiff snarked to himself.

"Uh, yes. Ahem. Well, I trust you'll be able to introduce yourselves," Awol said hastily. And at that, he slammed the door and audibly ran from the corridor.

All four of them listened intently for his footsteps to disappear. Then, finally, the tall one spoke:

"Okay, what the hell is this?" he shouted. "Awol told us we were getting a new teammate. That sounded great!. I was thinkin' I'd get someone cool, like me, not another loser like these guys. Like maybe a girl! Maybe a hot girl! But noooooooo… We get a fu…freaking kid! Is this a sick joke?!"

Spiff was positively fuming at this insult. "Kid? I'll have you know, I'm the future Spaceman Spiff! I'm gonna be the greatest Spaceman of all time! You and these punks are gonna be groveling at my feet just to get the chance to talk to me! So you'd better not insult me like that!"

The teen looked at Spiff with a confounded look on his face. He reacted as though Spiff had said the most ridiculous thing in the world. As if Spiff had just claimed to be the regent monarch of Planet Bavaria or something. The blond-haired kid kept looking between the two, like the referee of a boxing match.

The teen started laughing- hard!

"Hahahahaha! You, the greatest Spaceman ever? Oh my _god! _I've never heard anything that crazy in my entire life! What are you, like, three inches tall? You're not making it out of the academy, buddy! You-"

Suddenly, the blond-haired kid stood up and started yelling in what sounded like gibberish. "You leaff him alone, Mort! Schusch! Vat iss your problem? Hee iss jusst a boy! Boy wit big dreamss! Hee iss just hoping tall!"

Spiff was completely lost, but somehow the tall boy understood. "Aw, don't be such a kiss ass, Rolf! This loser's going nowhere and you know it! And no amount of "hoping tall" is gonna fix that!"

"Anyting iss poschible, Mort!"

"Not _everything,_ man! Some things just can't happen! Like a three-foot-tall guy getting Spaceman!"

"Spaceman iss fery hard, zat iss fery hard, yesch, but if he vorks fery ha-"

"Okay, WHAT is going on here?!" Spiff yelled. "You're saying things, but no words are coming out! You're talking in voodoo talk!

The tall guy turned to Spiff and said, "Rolf's speaking perfect English. You must just be too _stupid _to understand his accent! Stupid like your stupid… stupid freaking… er… dreams and sh… stuff…er…yeah. …Uh, I'm Mort."

"Pleased to meet you," Spiff growled. "I'm Spaceman Spiff."

Mort continued, "Oh, and this guy here is-"

"Rolf! I'm Rolf!" interrupted the blond kid.

"Yeah… he's Rolf," replied Mort.

"Well, I am _absolutely _looking forward to working with you both," Spiff said in the same angry tone of voice. "Now who's this chump?" he asked, pointing to the short kid, who was sitting in a corner, and had turned to face the opposite direction. He didn't appear to actually be doing anything.

"That's Fargle," said Mort. "He, uh, doesn't talk much."

Fargle, indeed, didn't say anything.

"What's the matter, kid?" Spiff asked him. "You too _good_ to talk to me?" Still nothing from Fargle's end.

Spiff was getting mad. "Come on! Speak up!" He grabbed Fargle's shoulder, but Fargle only gave a shriek, swiped his hand away, and buried himself deeper into the corner.

"HEY!" yelled Spiff, "What's your-"

"Ah, Ah!" Rolf interrupted. "Vee, ah, vee had better get to schleep! Fery big day tomorrow, yesch? Yesch!"

"Y-yes, right, Rolf," said Mort, laying back down onto his bed. "We'd _all_ better get to bed." He shot a "back off" look in Spiff's direction.

"Oh, uh, okay," said Spiff. He backed away from Fargle and climbed onto the small, empty bed- which was really little more than a cot. After he did so, the lights quickly shut off, seemingly automatically.

There was an awkward pause as everyone settled in. "This was a good idea..." Mort said in a soft voice. "'cause, 'cause Spiff here's going to need lots of rest. For _all _of the _totally cool _and _awesome _stuff he's gonna do. The best Spaceman ever's gotta sleep well. Heh heh heh… Good_night, _all!"

"Goot night," whispered Rolf.

"...night..." tittered Fargle.

"Good night, Ralph, Fuggle, _Mud... _I mean Mort," grumbled Spiff.

The young boy lay in the darkness, stewing in anger. He thought of a bunch of nasty things he could do to Mort. He thought of a few ways to get Fargle to say something in his defense. He wondered whether there was a way to get Rolf to _stop _talking. And before laying his head down to sleep, he whispered:

"The incredible Spaceman Spiff is about to engage in his first mission. Surely, an incredible day in the history of spacefaring- perhaps, all of humankind. Soon the world will know of his stunning strength... and no one will be able to laugh at him ever again!"


	4. Welcome to the Arena

The Arpenholl Space Academy was equipped with an enormous stadium located just outside the station- the Arpenholl Arena. This was where the trainees took their final tests. Each and every Saturday, a new batch of trainees were sent from their bunks and shuttled into the Arena- and today was Saturday.

Four shuttles took off from the Academy's main building, and inside one of them was Spiff's group: he, Mort, Rolf, Fargle, and Awol, who was supervising- more like babysitting, as he'd put it. The dynamic between the four kids was much the same as the previous night: Fargle was silently slouching in a corner, Mort and Rolf were chatting it up - Mort was the only one in the room who had any idea what Rolf was saying, but they seemed to be talking about exotic fruit - and Spiff was doing his best to ignore them all as he stared out the window.

As the shuttle left the main building's docking bay and entered space, Spiff saw stars. Endless stars, as far as anyone could ever see. They were thousands of miles away, Spiff knew, but all the same, he made a vow that he would someday see every single one.

The trip from the main building to the Arena was short, much to the relief of Spiff and especially Awol. As soon as the docking station drew near, Awol stood up, and began barking his prepared orders. The trainees immediately ceased what they were doing and listened.

"Alright, you four. I've seen videos of all of you performing- and I've seen you in person, little punk. And as much as I hate my job, I have to say; you guys all have the goods. I'm… looking forward… to seeing how you do today.

"Once we reach the station, I'll be leaving you and heading to the Training Tower. I'm one of the judges, see. This place is pretty small, so just, you know, follow the arrows and you'll find your platform."

Almost as soon as the Staff Sergeant finished speaking, the shuttle docked at the station. Immediately, Awol exited and walked off, clearly quite hastily, to the Training Tower, where the judges of the VR training watched. He obviously had no desire to be with the boys for… any stretch of time, really.

"Pfft. What a big loser," scoffed Mort. "Okay, I see the arrows pointing that way."

The group wandered away from the docking bay in whatever direction the arrows took them.

Awol's route was much simpler than the boys': after rounding a single corner, he almost immediately found himself in front of the express elevator to the Training Tower. One quick elevator trip later, and he was inside.

The five other judges turned to look at him. The judging staff of the Final Test had been unchanged for many years. The most recent addition was Awol, who was appointed a decade ago. Thus, the whole group looked, by now, like a group of grumpy old grandparents. There was a tiny, wrinkly old man, who never said anything but was the only one who ever really smiled; a stern-looking woman, in her sixties, with her hair color still clinging to its original dark brown; A tall alien male, with typical green skin, bug eyes, and antennae; A man with a scar across his face and only one arm; and another woman, who had oddly colored eyes (bright yellow) and a small number of wrinkles.

"Hello, Awol," said the wrinkly man. He didn't like Awol very much - none of them did, since he was still 'the new guy' – but he was the only one who ever bothered to be polite. "Is that kid of yours going to be taking the Final Test today?" Word had already gotten around about Spiff, and thankfully the response was generally one more of amusement than anger.

"Yes he is," Awol grunted as he sat down. "I've placed him Blue Lightning, with a team of older boys.

"Really?" asked the man with the scar. "Any… particular reason you chose that group?"

Awol leaned back in his chair. "Why, no," he responded, "that's just the way it worked out. No particular reason at all.

But, in fact, there was: Of the Final Test's four teams, Blue Lightning was widely considered to be the "cursed team". This "curse" meant that, no matter how skilled the individual members were, any group of kids that were assigned Blue Lightning would end up failing. Considering how skilled he knew Spiff to be, Awol wanted all the help he could get to throw him out.

Back down in the entrance hallways, the kids had followed the series of arrows through blank hallways over to large double doors, which parted the minute they got close. They opened into a fairly small room, that was empty with the sole exception of the far wall, which had two rows of four hooks each: the top row held low-level Neutralizers, and the bottom row held transparent, square-shaped goggles.

"Aw yeah!" exclaimed Spiff, as he ran forward to admire their sleek look. As he slipped his goggles on, he noticed that they made him see a little clearer.

"Hey," he asked, "are these the things that let us see the VR?"

"See?" answered Mort. "I think your definition of VR is a… little different from Arpenholl's, chump." He snickered.

"What do you mean?" Spiff asked. At that moment, Rolf opened his mouth to speak- but was blocked by Mort's hand. "Now, now, Rolf," the tall boy said. "He's gonna figure it out himself."

As soon as everyone had their goggles on, the floor suddenly began to rise. Spiff momentarily panicked, but it didn't take long to figure out what was going on: the floor was an elevator, taking them to a higher floor. He got a little giddy.

After a very short trip, the elevator ceased moving, and opened out onto an enormous stadium. It looked to be almost a mile wide in every direction and the ceiling was incredibly high. Perplexingly, the stadium was absolutely featureless. As Spiff looked around, he saw nothing but the dull, gray floor, and the only thing on it was he, his companions, and the other three teams of trainees that had arrived that day. Where were the training obstacles?

"Wauw!" cried Rolf, as he pointed to the ceiling. All four turned up to look.

Looming above the stadium was the audience. The spectator seats surrounded the entire Arena, and there must have been over 100,000 seats, if not many more- and every single on of the seats was filled. Every new training day at Arpenholl brought huge hordes of spectators. Some of them were parents or relatives of the trainees, and others were the judges of the Arena and the Directors of the Institute. The majority of the viewers, however, were average citizens who wanted to see a show. And a show they were certainly about to get.

Spiff and his bunkmates stood rooted to their spots. The only part of them that felt like it was able to move was their necks, as they scanned the giant crowd in awe. Before this moment, they had all trained in solitude, alone with an instructor- and all four were stunned at the legion of viewers they suddenly had.

"Hey! Those are my parents!" cried Mort, waving at a middle-aged couple in the crowd. Rolf, too, yelled something long and confusing in German to a large family, and Fargle have a slight smile as he silently waved to a single woman sitting in the bleachers.

Spiff scanned the crowd intently, but he couldn't see anyone he recognized. "And who's here for YOU, Hero Boy?" mocked Mort; Rolf lightly punched him in the back. "Shaht Ahp!"

The loudspeaker buzzed, silencing the horde of spectators. The enthusiastic voice of a young woman echoed: "Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome, one and all, to the Arpenholl Space Academy's Final Test! We've got a big crowd today, so let's hope our trainees bring us their A game!"

_Oh, I will, _thought Spiff. He wasn't about to spend his days cooped up in a training facility. He was Spaceman Spiff, and he was gonna make sure that the whole audience knew it.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" cried the announcer. "May I present to you, our trainees!"

"In the blue uniform, with young Mort, Rolf, Fargle, and Spiff, it's… Blue Lightning!" the crown politely cheered. The announcer went on to introduce the other three teams: There were the Green Blizzard, a team of a tall human boy a short, chubby human girl, and two alien kids of indeterminable gender- one of whom resembled a lizard, and the other a dog; The Yellow Rain, a team of four nervous-looking little girls, each a different species, and probably even younger than Fargle; The Red Twister, a team of tough-looking human teenagers, two male and two female; and Spiff's team, the Blue Lightning- with their symbol, a small, jagged streak running down the front of the shirt. Spiff liked the look of the symbol quite a bit.

After she finished the teams' introductions, the announcer's voice perked up. "Alright, trainees! Are! You! _Ready?!"_

Without a second thought, Spiff screamed as loud as he could, "_**YEAH!**_" Most of the other trainees – save for the Yellow Rain and Fargle – shouted, too, but Spiff's was by far the loudest and most boisterous.

Awol, watching from the Training Tower, groaned. He really loathed that boy and his showboating.

"Well well, sounds like some of use are a little excited!' said the announcer, amused. "All right then, folks! Let's raise 'em up!"

"Raise us-?!" asked Spiff, who was cut short by the team's elevator rising even higher.

Mort laughed. "Man, what kind of Spaceman hopeful are you? You've never even watched a single Final Test before?" He laughed again. Rolf and Fargle looked at Spiff with pity, but said nothing. He was mighty confused.

Mighty confused, that is, until the elevators began to finish their ascent, as they neared what seemed to be the ceiling. To Spiff's surprise, the audience suddenly raised alongside the elevator, quickly rising far above the "ceiling", out of sight. As the elevator entered a long tunnel, Spiff wondered: what could possibly-

Whoa.

Above the "ceiling" was an entire world. No exaggeration. Spiff looked far and wide, and he couldn't see anything that indicated that he was indoors. The orange sky stretched far off into the horizon, and below him were valleys, rivers, forests, mountains, deserts… and creatures. Lots and lots and lots of very alien creatures.

So… this is what Virtual Reality meant. A reality, that wasn't real. The gigantic Arpenholl Arena housed an entire tiny little planet, so well-disguised that you couldn't even see or hear the audience that was watching- nor, impressively, the three other teams that were somewhere in the stadium.

"Zounds…" Spiff muttered in wonder.

"Okay, guys," Mort muttered commandingly. "Just remember I'm in charge, and we'll do just fine."

Without any warning, the announcer suddenly began counting down. Whoever she was, and however long she had been doing the job, she made no attempt to hide that she was incredibly excited to watch the show. As she listed each new number, her voice seemed to raise an entire octave.

"Five! Four! THREE! _TWO!..."_

Spiff got into a fighting stance and readied his Neutralizer. His heart was pounding, and he was sweating, and though he put on a serious face, he'd never felt more excited in his life.

"_**ONE!"**_

"_**GO!"**_


	5. The Challenges Begin

As soon as the bell sounded, Spiff was off. He ran in the direction of the mountain in the center of the playing field, betting that there was something exciting to do there. He didn't get very far, though, before Mort knocked him to the ground from behind.

"Stay in the back, 'hero'!" sneered Mort. "I've got a plan. Follow me, everybody!" He marched off in the same direction, striking a faux-heroic pose. Spiff lay on the ground for a moment, then finally stood up, dusted himself off, and trudged onward. Up ahead, he saw that Fargle and Rolf were blindly following that big jerk cretin, Mort, and barely even noticed when he was knocked down. Spiff readied his Neutralizer- he was going to show all those punks just what they were missing, one way or another.

Up in the Training Tower, Awol was privately smiling. Everything was going as he'd hoped it would. Bye bye, Spiff.

"The Green Blizzard have completed the cliff climbing challenge!" exclaimed the announcer. "I see that most of Blue Lightning have almost made their way up to the tree maze challenge..."

'Cliff climbing challenge? Tree maze challenge? Man, whoever came up with these names was the most literal person in the universe', thought Spiff, his head still dejectedly pointing to the ground.

"...Oh, but that little blond boy in the back has lagged behind!"

Spiff jerked his head up. Little blond boy? Did she mean him?

He saw that his teammates were all far up ahead- oh no, she did! He began to run... but then stopped himself.

Awol glared. He hadn't known Spiff for very long, but he knew enough about him to know that seeing him NOT move was a very strange sight. What was he doing?

Down below, Spiff was feeling through the utility belt of his suit. Most of it was junk that he wouldn't really need- extra provisions, water purifiers, stuff like that- but he was convinced that there was something in there that could help him.

After a minute of frantic searching, he finally found that something. It was a weird little box, with a small hole on one side and and some barely-legible print on another side.

Spiff squinted. The print said:

JET PACK

PORTABLE

WARNING: PACK ACTIVATES IMMEDIATELY UPON INFLATION

DO NOT USE IN SMALL SPACES

An inflatable jet pack? That was standard Spaceman gear! How lucky that he got to show off his Spaceman prowess in front of the judges!

"Red Twister and Green Blizzard have both completed the spelunking challenge! Blue Lightning has passed the tree maze, but some of their teammates are still lagging behind..."

Crap! Spiff saw that his team had completely disappeared from his sight! They'd gone on without him! He practically spat into his jet pack as he inflated it, and only had time to put it on one shoulder before it automatically took off.

WHOOSH! The force was far stronger than Spiff expected. He was suddenly propelled forward at what seemed like 100 miles an hour. How did he control this thing? Where was he going?!

In the Training Tower, Awol had become indignant. "That wasn't supposed to be in his utility belt! He can't use it!"

"Actually," said the stern female judge, "it was. All standard gear for Spacemen and Roamers is located inside those belts. This… Spiff… was merely the first one who ever actually noticed. He's free to use it however he pleases."

Awol grumbled and sat back down to watch the proceedings some more.

Spiff had just torpedoed through a virtual maze of trees, and by some miracle he had missed them all. He finally spied his team up ahead, clinging to the face of the mountain, trying to dodge boulders being thrown at them from a huge mechanical launcher at the top. Fargle was silently crouched behind a rock, Rolf was still valiantly trying to climb the hill, and Mort... Ha! Mort was cowering in a heap at the bottom of the mountain, his face all bloodied. Some leader!

Spiff tried to call out, "Not so tough now, huh, Mort?", but the jetpack had already shot him from away from Mort's position. He

Spiff did a 180 turn in midair, which shut off his jet pack, but didn't stop momentum from continuing to propel him through the air. In the split second that followed, Spiff saw his teammates looking up at him, gaping. They seemed to be wincing in anticipation, as if he was about to-

With a loud pop, Spiff suddenly found himself trapped butt-first inside a small hole. Something pushed against him... Then again... Then again.

Spiff looked behind him. He'd managed to launch himself directly into the boulder launcher, and he was just big enough for his body to completely block its flow.

Below him, Spiff's teammates were still flabbergasted. Fargle looked awed, Rolf looked impressed, and Mort just glared.

The announcer stuttered as she said, "uh... B-Blue Lightning has... Passed the boulder dodging challenge?"

Mort hiked up to Spiff's position. "Well... That was cool," he said. "I guess you're pretty good for plugging holes, hero."

He stood up, wiped the blood and sweat off his face, and began hiking up the mountain. "Come on guys," he called, "We gotta get to the cave!"

As the team hurried up the slope, toward the launcher, Spiff reached out his hand expectantly. Mort, however, simply swatted it away. "Stay there a while, punk! Ha ha ha!"

Spiff and Rolf glared at him. Said Rolf, "Mort! Vee musst help him!" Rolf tried to grab Spiff's hand to pull him out, but Mort just grabbed him by the shoulder and kept pulling him up the hill.

"Just leave him, dumbo," he said, "we're running out of time!"

"Rolf! Come back!" shouted Spiff. But Rolf didn't come back; he just gave a "sorry" look.

Fargle still stayed at Spiff's side. He wanted to help, but he didn't want to lag behind. Mort was scary, and might say mean things to him if he disobeyed. He looked at Spiff, then at his leaders, then at Spiff, then at his leaders, then at-

"Come ON, Fargle!" Mort shouted.

That was all it took. Fargle dashed up the hill with a squeak.

Spiff shouted, "Guys! Stop it! Get me out of this thing!" No response.

The announcer exclaimed, "Blue Lightning has begun the spelunking challenge!"

Spiff nearly screamed. "Agh! S-Spaceman Spiff is *ouch* in trouble! His tucus is trapped by towering, terrifying tossing technology! *Oof!* And his worthless teammates have abandoned him! *Ugh!* How can he escape? How can he *ach* get free?!"

Up in the Training Tower, Awol was grinning. This was just the sort of thing he'd been hoping for.


	6. The Spelunking Challenge

Rolf, Fargle and Mort were carefully navigating the virtual catacombs of the mountain caves. Having no map and no decent light source, they were already lost.

"Jeez, how big can this cave be?" Mort grumbled. "Look, guys, just follow me some more. I think I see some light up this way."

"Zat iss not light, Mort!" interjected Rolf, "Zat iss jusst more cayf! You are leading us novere!"

"Oh, shut up! That's totally light!" Mort retaliated. "And it's not like you could do any better. Or this little twerp here, or even Hero Boy!"

"Unt zat iss another sing, Mort!" Rolf continued, his left hand gripping Fargle's right. "Vy did you just leaf Shpiff out zere? He vill be zere all day!"

Mort groaned. "Enough about Spiff! He - watch this ledge here - he was just slowing us down! He's worthless!" He stomped his foot loudly on the ground as he emphasized, "Completely WORTHLESS!"

Suddenly the cave began to rumble. Strange screeching sounds, like a mix of squeaking mice and barking dogs, sounded all around them.

Mort grimaced. "Um..."

The screeching grew louder. The rumbling grew into an earthquake. Hundreds of holes opened up in the cave walls, and out crawled...

"Space bats!" cried Rolf.

Space bats, or tidtids, don't really look anything like bats. They have bodies that are shaped more like lizards, with lots of fur, long limbs ending in three talons, and wings more like that of an insect (and they can't even fly with them!). But they're black and lived in caves, and that was enough for them to get the nickname "space bats".

And now, a whole horde of them were attacking Blue Lightning! They bit, scratched, and tore! They stole Rolf's goggles! They ripped out some of Mort's hair! A few of them had even picked Fargle up and started dragging him around!. And with each new attack, the team's simulated life-support systems beeped louder and louder. If their faux systems failed, the team would be disqualified, and they'd have to go through yet another month of training.

Though he was distracted, Mort tried to bark more orders. "G-guys! Try an- ack! Try- try to grab your blasters!"

"No need!" said a voice from elsewhere. A loud blast sounded through the cavern. A laser suddenly smashed into one of the space bats, putting it out of commission. It disappeared in a ray of light, transported back to its safe cage. More shots followed, and each resulted in another space bat falling down. The bats carrying Fargle were zapped, and he toppled to the ground. The lasers' precision seemed impossibly exact, and even Mort knew that only one person had such accuracy.

"Spiff?" he called.

"You bet!" answered his unmistakable voice. Spiff jumped out of the darkness, laughing as the last bat teleported away. As he laughed, the announcer's voice sounded through invisible speakers: "Blue Lightning has passed the spelunking challenge!"

Fargle and Mort lay on the ground, unable to move. "H-how did you get out of that trap?" he asked.

"My butt was just stuck," replied Spiff. "It wasn't that hard to wiggle out. No thanks to you guys!"

"I am sorry I did naht help you, Shpiff!" said Rolf, "Mort pullt me avay!"

Spiff nodded in understanding. Then he grabbed Mort by the arm and said: "By the way, it's called a Neutralizer, not a 'blaster'.

"Yeah, and you'd better know how to use it!" said a voice that came from the opposite direction of Blue Lightning's entrance.

"Who's that?!" asked Spiff and Mort, in unison.

A beefy teenage girl walked into view, smirking and pointing a Neutralizer at the gang. She was wearing green, with a snowball on the front of her uniform. Spiff recognized her as Adeema, of Green Blizzard. Behind her came the three other members, also looking ready to fight.

The announcer's voice sounded unexpectedly. "Green Blizzard has initiated a Battle challenge against Blue Lightning!"

"Wh-what?! What are you talking about?!" Mort had never even heard of Battle challenges. Neither had Fargle or Rolf. They stayed on the ground, cowering in confusion.

But Spiff showed no fear. He pulled his Neutralizer from its holster and smiled.

"Alright then," he sneered. "Bring it!"


	7. Green Blizzard

Adeema fired the first shot.

Spiff jumped to his left to avoid it. He dodged the shot, but he didn't dodge the sharp rock he ended up jumping into. The rock's edge scraped against his arm, and Spiff felt it draw some blood. He let out an involuntary "Aaagh!" as three more shots whizzed over his head.

"G-g-gonna have to do better than that, suckers!" Spiff yelled, as he ducked behind the rock, two more shots hitting it as he jumped.

Safe behind the hard piece of scenery, Spiff took a moment to inspect his arm. To his brief surprise, he saw that it was perfectly pristine- no blood, no cut, not even a tear on his uniform. He remembered that, this being a simulation, his uniform was equipped with a shield that could fix up wounds. He thanked his lucky stars.

Though he was safe behind the rock, the same couldn't be said of his teammates. Neutralizer blasts were being fired at an almost continuous rate. Spiff couldn't see who was firing them and from where, but he could hear loud grunting and a lot of zapping. He peeked out from his hiding spot, blasting in random directions to cover himself. He didn't have time to see much, but it looked like Green Blizzard - Adeema, the wiry boy, the lizard kid, and the dog kid - had pushed Blue Lightning into a corner.

"Oh no!" Spiff narrated, "Spiff's teammates are getting creamed out there!"

As he dived back into cover, Spiff heard the announcer sound. "Blue Lightning has lost a member!"

"Oh come on!" he shouted. He jumped out of his hiding spot and fired, running across the room in search of more cover. The shot connected- it hit the short, wiry Green Blizzard member, and zapped him out of the game.

"Green Blizzard has lost a member!" exclaimed the announcer, as a laughing Spiff ducked behind another rock, on the opposite side of the room.

The defeated Blue Lightning member was Mort. Rolf was still blasting away at the Blizzards, and Fargle was huddled below him, but Mort was nowhere to be seen. Behind his rock, Spiff cackled, "Spaceman Spiff's irritating 'leader" has been defeated! It's all his game now!"

Up in the Judge's Tower, where he was zapped after losing, Mort was enraged. "I can't believe I didn't see that shot!" he screamed. He kicked at a chair and smacked himself on the head.

"We'll at least you're out of danger, right?" said Zyzyx, a little green girl from Yellow Rain. She'd been knocked out quite early, as had the rest of her team. Also zapped out were two of the four Red Twister members, Rob and Picarra.

"We weren't IN any danger, you dolt!" Mort snapped back at Zyzyx. "Awol, how long 'til this is over? I'm bored as hell over here!"

Awol was sitting glued to his spot. He focused 110% on the Test. Staring at the screen. Not even blinking. He didn't even realize Mort was talking to him.

Between Mort and Awol, a bright light flashed. When it cleared, Fargle was there, laying on the ground in a fetal position.

"Oh, damn, not you too!" Mort groaned. "Awol?! Come on! Time is friggin' money!"

Still transfixed on the game, Awol muttered, "Almost over."

Down below, Spiff was getting ready to pounce. Fargle had been knocked out of commission by Adeema, but that left her out in the open, and the others were preoccupied with Rolf.

Spiff counted. "Three. Two. One... _Go!_"

He dove over the rock and landed in his stomach, firing three shots. They missed. He rolled on his right side to dodge fire from the lizard kid. He tried to jump onto his feet, but slipped, and got a blast to the shoulder. He jumped again, stuck the landing this time, and fired.

The blast hit the dog kid in the leg. They stumbled, and almost dropped their gun. Rolf, who was laying on the ground behind them, swept their other foot, knocked them down, swiped their gun, and began brawling hand-to-hand.

The announcer's voice sounded again. "Red Twister has lost a member!" This had nothing to do with the battle, but the lizard kid and Adeema still stopped for a split second to listen.

"You're not very bright, are you?", Spiff said, and he fired. The blast hit the lizard straight in the face- a "kill" shot. He teleported away.

"Wha-?!" stammered the beefy girl. She'd come to her senses just in time to dodge Spiff's next shot, but this also made her fall over, on top of Rolf and the dog

Spiff couldn't help but cackle. This was just all too easy. Both opponents just where he wanted them, and Rolf right there backing him up? Why, it was almost unfair!

'I'll just even the stakes...' thought Spiff, and he closed his eyes. Then, he fired twice, in the direction of the pig-pile.

Grinning, Spiff opened his eyes. He saw...

Two members of Green Blizzard and a charred bit of ground next to them?

Up in the Training Tower, Rolf had just arrived. He was quite confused.

"Kan... Kan he DO zat?!"

Rolf looked over to the other disqualified trainees- literally everyone, except for Spiff, the two from Green Blizzaed, and one from Red Twister. "Kan he DO ZAT?!"

They had no answer.

Finally he turned to the judges. "KAN HE D-"

"Yes!" Awol interrupted. "Team kills are absolutely permitted. Now shut up!"

Back down in the Arena, it was the Adeema's turn to cackle. "Nice shot!" she exclaimed. She grabbed her discarded Neutralizer and aimed it right at Spiff. "But mine are nicer!"

"What kind of a taunt is that?!" Spiff retorted. Just as Adeema fired, he did too, and launched himself in the direction of some nearby cover.

His aim was true! His shot hit the lizard kid dead in the chest, teleporting him away.

"I mean, really!" Spiff continued. "'Your shots are nicer'? That is so lame!"

Just as he suspected, Adeema angrily peered around the corner and shot. She shot THREE times! But Spiff dodged them all, and ran to yet another hiding spot.

"Uh oh. I think you're mad!" taunted Spiff some more. He jumped out from cover and said, "What's the matter, Chunky Kong? Lose your gym card?"

The girl was too enraged to even attack. Instead she bellowed, "my name is Adeema, you little punk! And I'm gonna knock your ass to kingdom COME!" To Spiff's surprise, Adeema actually threw her gun away and charged at him!

'She's even easier than I thought!' thought Spiff.

Adeema was a fast runner, and she really _was _pretty scary, but Spiff knew better. He fired point-blank into her chest, and she was zapped out. Simple as that.

The announcer grinned as she said: "Blue Lightning has passed the dueling challenge!"

Behind the announcer, two tall teens were getting quite emotional. One was Mort, and he was laughing. The other was Adeema, freshly warped in, and she was fuming.

"He GOT you! Oh my god, he totally got you! Ha haaaa!" Mort guffawed.

Adeema smacked him on the shoulder. "Shut UP, you lunkhead! I still managed to get YOU out! And if that kid wasn't some kind of smarty we'd have gotten your whole team!"

"But ya didn't! We won! We beat you all fair and square! Haha!" Mort was so excited that he began thumping his fists on Fargle's shoulders. Fargle said nothing.

"Well, ah... Not exactly," said one of the judges. In front of her was a grinning Awol, looking quite sinister.

Confused, Mort looked back at his view screen, where Spiff was still inside the cave, currently doing a bunch of silly victory dances.

Suddenly, the cave broke apart. Pounds and pounds of lifelike rocks and stone crumbled to the ground, and seemingly disappeared. Within minutes, Spiff was no longer standing inside a deep and dark cave, but outside, in the middle of a rather barren playing court.

The announcer's voice crackled. "One final test for Blue Lightning!" Her voice was as chipper as always, but for some reason, it seemed a lot more... sinister.

The ground began to shake. Uh oh. Spiff had seen enough movies to know that wasn't a good sign.

The shaking became harder. Louder. Longer. As they got closer, Spiff realized that they were sounded in a rhythmic pattern- as if they were footsteps. And they were coming from the direction straight behind Spiff.

Spiff was afraid to look. He knew he wouldn't like what he'd see. But as the thumps grew louder, and louder, and more terrifying, he knew that he had to.

Spiff turned. Directly behind him was a towering behemoth of a monster. It was colored varying shades of putrid puke-green, with three blue eyes, massive powerful legs, a segmented tail, and the biggest, nastiest, toothiest, ugliest Spiff-sized jaw you'd ever see.

Spiff knew what it was. It was a Zorg- the most deadly creature in the universe!


	8. Zorg

The beast roared. Spiff was knocked off his feet by the force of its breath alone, and as he flew back nearly 20 feet, the audience above him gasped in shock.

"Don't worry, folks!" the announcer chimed in. "This Zorg here isn't real. It's just an incredibly advanced robot, and it won't hurt the kid a bit... But it can certainly rough him up!"

Spiff rolled onto his feet. There was now a moderate distance between him and the Zorg, but with a creature that big, it didn't matter much.

Back up in the Training Tower, Mort asked, "Do you think the little punk has a shot?"

Awol turned from his seat and smirked. He looked quite pleased, and unsettlingly so. "Have you ever wondered why," he asked, "even though we have all these recruits come in, week after week, the galaxy still isn't filled to the brim with Spacemen?" He tapped the screen. "It's because of _that_ thing. Our Zorg has dashed more hopes and dreams than poor parents at Christmastime. The last one who beat it was months ago, and it was a hell of a narrow victory. The Zorg bot all but guarantees that only our absolute strongest pass the Final Test."

"Vell," Rolf cut in, "Spiff has pretty major skilss! Hee could tear thiss monsster apart!"

Awol's smile faded. "We'll see, kid," he replied. He turned back to the screen.

Spiff was circling the Zorg. He'd dash around it in a complete loop, then switch directions and do it again. The monster didn't know how to respond. It kept its focused planted firmly on the boy, but it made no move to attack.

While keeping the beast distracted, Spiff was trying to plan. He had only his Neutralizer, and he didn't know how well it would work against a Zorg. It hadn't moved at all, aside from turning around to follow Spiff, and he couldn't even see any weak spots.

'Oh, no,' he thought. 'I'm going to have to actually engage it, aren't I?'

He paused his strafing to catch his breath and contain himself. Unfortunately, that brief moment was all it took for the Zorg to charge! The behemoth was upon him almost immediately, and he only managed to dive out of the way by working on pure instinct.

As he hit the ground, Spiff turned to the Zorg and took note of its tail, which was divided into segments. Spiff recalled the second grade, where he learned that an animal's tail is connected to its spine and head.

The monster turned and lunged again. Spiff dodged it more deliberately this time, but didn't have time to properly aim his gun before it was upon him yet again. The third time, however, was the charm: As the Zorg's backside became visible, Spiff fired, hitting it square in the tail- bulls-eye.

...Unfortunately, it did nothing. The Zorg roared in simulated pain, but shrugged it off, and no damage seemed to be done.

'Crap,' thought Spiff. 'New plan needed!'

This time, as the Zorg attacked again, Spiff daringly ran under its feet. The monster's mouth tried to follow him, but it was cursed with a belly too fat and a neck too immobile. To the gasps of the audience, Spiff blasted several shots into the monster's giant belly, and dove out from underneath its tail. To his anger, there once again was no visible damage caused to the monster's shell.

Spiff's frustration was suddenly interrupted by the sight of several blasts that were not from his own gun. Confused, Spiff turned around, to see a tall boy, dressed in red, behind him. Doing a quick head count in his head, Spiff remembered that he was, indeed, not alone. The guy was the last member of Red Twister, and the only kid besides him that was still in the game.

"Halt right there, monster!" the Red exclaimed. At this, he gave Spiff a wink and shot at the Zorg's mouth. "Don't worry, little buddy, I'll help you-"

He blinked. Suddenly he was no longer on the battlefield, but inside the Training Tower, surrounded by other combatants. They all looked shocked, and so did the announcer. But she just barely managed to stammer out: "R… Red Twister has lost a member!"

Down below, Spiff was blowing the smoke from his blaster. Nobody was taking any glory away from him, no sir.

Without even looking, he dodged the umpteenth lunge by the Zorg. Its movements were completely predictable- it was almost pitiful. As he turned to look back, he saw a bit of charred skin on the Zorg's chin- where the Red Twister boy's blast had shot it. That shot had done no damage, but it gave Spiff an idea.

He ran away, backwards, still staring at the Zorg. The monster looked confused, and stared back. After getting about 100 feet away, he stopped.

For a minute, they stared. It was as if the Zorg had forgotten it was supposed to attack him. But it remembered soon enough- it roared, and it charged, the same old stuff as always. Spiff readied his stance. He aimed his gun in a curiously exact position. He stood perfectly still, and allowed the Zorg to run straight to him.

It was 50 feet away. 30 feet. 10. Still he didn't budge.

The Zorg, to the shock of everyone (including the robot's designers), stopped directly in front of Spiff, lunged down, and gobbled him up. Whole. There was emptiness where the boy had stood a minute before. It looked as if it had swallowed him. The audience gasped.

...and then Zorg's mouth exploded. A quick flash of light and it tore in two. Out of the hole in the back came Spiff, grinning and triumphant.

"The incredible Spaceman Spiff has defeated the monstrosity!" he exclaimed, and his voice was just barely audible over the deafening roar of the crowd.


	9. The Mission

Migget Awol, as usual, was not happy. His face made that quite clear as he stormed through the halls of Arpenholl- he wore an intimidating scowl, that said to others, "don't bother me". So no one bothered him. This left him with plenty of time to reflect while on his way to his destination.

It had only been a few days, yet that little shrimp named Spiff had already caused him more headaches than he could bear. Spiff was disrespectful, rude, selfish, and a blowhard- and he'd just utterly killed it out there in the Arena. Awol's hopes of getting rid of him had been completely dashed. At this rate, the Spaceman wannabe would be around for a long, long while.

Reaching the northeast corner of the Academy, Awol boarded an elevator heading downward.

He almost wished he could take back that money. Who knows how Spiff's parents got it, but it was clear that they only unloaded it on Awol so they could ensure that Spiff made it into the school and out of their hair. Well, Migget Awol was no babysitter, especially not to Spiff!

He passed under the sign reading "Team Quarters". He had almost arrived, finally.

Well, his little scheme had failed. Blue Lightning, that long-cursed team, had actually _won_ a Final Test. In fact, they were the only team to even make it through at all- that was rarer still. Awol had a sinking feeling that Spiff's status as the sole "survivor" of the Test would give him some extra incentive points from the higher-ups.

At long last, he found himself back at door 7-558, which he pushed open rather violently. With a scowl, he glanced around the room, whose eyes all turned toward him in surprise.

Mort was sitting oh his bed, with his mother and father at either side, their arms surrounding him. Rolf's family was scattered around the room, some sitting, some standing, and some even kneeling. Fargle and his mother were snuggled close, a few significant feet away from the rest of the group.

Spiff had no family with him at all- and yet he was apparently the center of attention. He was standing in the center of the room, and as Awol walked in, he was bragging:

"I wasn't _scared_, of course. I didn't bat an- oh, hey, Migget!"

"I, uh, hate to break up the family reunion, but the boys are needed in the briefing room."

Spiff beamed. "Aw yeah! My first mission! Time to show the universe how I cool I am!" He dashed out the door, past a flustered Awol.

Mort, who was sitting in between his parents looking quite annoyed, perked up at this news. "Oh, FINALLY! I've been listening to this loser's crap for an hour!" His mother shot him a dirty look, but he didn't care. He jumped off of his bunk and headed for the door, accompanied by Rolf and Fargle.

Spiff didn't hear Mort's little remark- he was already down the hall, once again being chased by Awol.

Awol (with the other kids lagging behind him) continued to chase Spiff through the station until he conveniently arrived at their destination, the Research Wing. Awol was too out of breath to even berate Spiff this time, and Spiff wouldn't have listened anyway.

The briefing room was at the far end of the hallway, and the group was surprised to find that, as they travelled down it, it slowly changed. The closer they got to the end of the hall, the dimmer the lights got, and the dingier the wall, floor, and ceiling appeared to be. Eventually, the lighting consisted solely of fire-lit torches. It was all like something out of a fantasy story. So was the door, once they came to it- it was large, apparently wooden, and had the appearance of a medieval double door- complete with knockers.

"Damned nerds…." Awol muttered. He clapped on the left knocker. The door opened by spreading away, like an automatic door, ruining the illusion. Further ruining it was the appearance of the room inside: a technological wonderland! There were rows and rows of desks and tables, and upon every one was a state-of-the-art computer or other cool gadget. Technicians of numerous species, genders, and ages were all milling about, busy testing devices and preparing mission plans.

All of this was news, apparently, to the person standing in front of the door. He appeared to be an old man, with a long beard, old robes, and a wizard's hat. In a deep, booming voice, he said, "Greetings, travelers! I'm quite pleased to see you at last. I see you've made it past the great Beast of the-"

"Will you cut it with this D&D crap, Paulo?!" interrupted Awol. "Every damn week, you morons mess around with this place's wallpaper and wear weird costumes, and I'm sick of it! We're here for a reason, you know!"

The wizard's voice suddenly became much higher, and much less confident. "U-uh, yes sir, Sergeant! Sorry! Sorry…" He pulled off his beard and hat, and removed his robes to reveal a uniform. Paulo was no old wizard; in reality, he was a geeky-looking young man, with glasses and dirty brown hair. After he finished taking off his costume, he stood up straight and recited a well-rehearsed introduction:

"Good afternoon, cadets!" he exclaimed with a smile. "My name's Paulo. You can call me Paul, or P., if you'd prefer?" He waited for a response, but nobody said anything. "Ahem… good to see you again, Sergeant! Which assignment are these guys for?"

"Q-13," replied Awol.

Paulo clapped his hands. "Aha! That one! All right, give us a minute to prep the briefing. You guys can have a look around if you want to."

Music to Spiff's ears! Immediately, Spiff dashed off toward something that had immediately caught his eye: an enormous touch screen on the room's right wall. The label at the top said "Planets of the Far Galaxy", which sounded right up his alley.

Sure enough, it was. The screen was a giant encyclopedia categorizing every single planet in the galaxy. Tapping on a planet brought up more information on it.

Spiff read up on planets Zok ("uninhabited"), Zark ("lightly inhabited; denizens worship the god Nollij"), Zokk ("notable for its very low gravity"), Plootarg ("Its surface is very soft"), and Gloob ("a barren blue rock"), and he was about to touch the symbol for Planet Zorg, but at that moment, Paulo's cheerful voice sounded over the intercom: "Alright everyone, we're ready to begin! Come on over to the balcony."

Spiff reluctantly pulled his hand away from the touch screen. Zorg would have to wait for now. But he wasn't too broken up about it- he had a good feeling that he would be seeing it in person some day.

As Spiff walked to the center of the room, the massive screen on the back wall lit up. Paulo stood beneath it, looking calm enough, but quietly giggling to himself.

Spiff reached the balcony and stood staring straight forward, with his hands firmly gripping the handrails. Awol and Fargle were both standing to his left, and behind him was Rolf. Mort was lagging behind, and after a moment he reached the balcony also, mumbling an excuse that no one really heard.

Once everyone had settled, a grinning Paulo took out a remote and clicked a button on it. The screen above him now displayed a new message: "MISSION Q-13 BRIEFING."

"W-Welcome recruits! Hee hee!" Paulo announced. He evidently found something very funny about this presentation. "For your first assignment, this Blue Lightning team will... heh heh... will be heading intooooooo...!"

Behind him, Spiff heard a few titterings from the other crew members. Paulo himself was nearly doubling over with laughter as he clicked the button again.

"...THE FIFTH DIMENSION!" he continued. He had another hearty laugh. So did much of the crew, who erupted in a practical chorus of chuckles and chortles. The screen now showed a strange, colorful vortex, with many strange geometric shapes, and in the center of it all was what appeared to be a small spaceship.

Awol growled, and shouted "Paulo!", but the young man continued, still cracking up. He clicked the button again, and the screen now showed a group of tall, intimidating aliens in a surreal landscape. "Here, hahaha!, you'll likely be set upon by... pfft! By the Zogs, who discovered the Fifth Dimension years before us. Hoo! The Zogs are very ruthless and... and... Hee hee! You'll probably be captured!" He clicked the button. The screen now showed a picture of a group of astronauts, chained up an being tortured by Zogs. "And, and since time has no meaning in the Fifth Dimension - Hahah! - you'll undoubtedly be-"

"Paulo, enough of this crap!" barked Awol. "It's a stupid waste of time, and you're scaring the kids."

The kids were scared indeed. Fargle looked just about ready to faint, with his whitened skin and wide, horrified eyes, and he'd fallen to his knees in terror. Rolf was gaping, with his mouth hanging wide open. Mort's brow was furrowed, and he looked sick. Even Spiff, so gung-ho to explore the universe, looked disturbed at the prospect of seeing the Fifth Dimension.

Paulo was still laughing, as he quite enjoyed ticking the Sergeant off. "Okay! Okay! Whatever you say, boss," he replied with a grin. He clicked that button several times more, as the screen flicked past several more grisly scenes of the Fifth Dimension's supposed dangers. Finally, he arrived at another introductory slide, which said: "THE *REAL* MISSION Q-13 BRIEFING! ;D"

"Aaaaaaanyway," said Paulo. "Your REAL mission, kids, is this."

The screen showed a picture of a small, yellow planet. "We're sending you to this planet- Q-13. That's not it's final name, it's just what we're calling it right now. It's real name will be what you guys decide to call it!"

'Spiffitania,' Spiff thought to himself.

Paulo continued. "Your job is to check the planet out, make a few observations, write some notes down, take a few pictures, that sort of thing. The whole thing will take you a day, if that. The planet has no intelligent life, so don't worry, no Zogs!" He gave a wide grin. No one laughed, and Fargle inched a bit further away.

"...Ahem. You'll all be given this gear." The screen changed again. It now showed a few diagrams of a cool-looking blue and yellow laser pistol. It had a very large barrel, with several sets of rings surrounding it, and it had a dial on the left side.

"This is the Neutralizer. It's certainly not the most powerful gun we have, but it's what recruits like you are given. As you can see, it can fire very large shots, and you can switch to various blast settings using that dial. Q-13 seems to mostly be a desert planet, but there may still be some hostile animals you'll have to deal with."

The screen changed once again. This time, it displayed a number of miscellaneous tools. Paulo resumed: "Here's everything else you'll need for the mission. Some goggles, to protect your eyes and to scan information. A tablet computer, so you can take notes. Some cell phones, so you can keep in touch with us. And a pickaxe and shovel, in case you get in a tight spot and have to dig yourselves out.

The screen changed, this time to a black screen. Paulo looked surprised for a moment, and said:

"Oh! Uh, that's the whole presentation! Well, that's all, guys. We'll be seeing you around. You can leave the way you came in, and the gear room is down the hall from us. Have a nice mission!"


	10. We Have Liftoff

The docking bay looked like it stretched out for miles. There were ships of every size and type, from passenger ships to personal vessels, from fighter craft to research facilities, from little one-man saucers to giant hundred-man planes. The bay was only separated from outer space by a few small walls and doors- and the windows, revealing nothing but total blackness, gave you the feeling of being very, very small.

Spiff had been here before, but for some reason, it was only now that he truly felt awed by the sight. It must have been his excitement getting to him.

He was walking toward his designated ship alongside his teammates, accompanied by their families. They were back in their Blue Lightning suits, with new matching boots and goggles. The other boys were chatting it up with their families for one last time, but Spiff remained focused. His eyes darted back and forth, up and down, around and around, searching about for the ship that would finally take him on his long-dreamed-of mission. He wasn't entirely certain what it looked like, but he knew that it was the same shade of blue as his uniform, and it had that lightning insignia on its-

Aha, there it was!

And it was a thing if beauty. The surface was sleek and shiny, unblemished by any dust or danger, and the bright sky-blue color was a breath of fresh air against the black, grey, and white paint jobs of the other ships in the hangar. A massive lightning bolt was marked its fin and both wings, suggesting speed and power. It had three large, circular exhaust ports on its back end, and a think nose attached to a long neck on its front end. Its door was a wide ramp on its base, which currently stood open, with two women in worker's uniforms - the pit crew - standing inside it.

The one on the left stepped out. She was neither smiling nor frowning- rather, her face was something in between. In any case, she looked very professional. "You guys are lucky," she remarked to the group. "The _Blue Lightning_ has only been on two missions before this one. Everything should run like clockwork- a smooth ride. Now, say goodbye to the loved ones and meet me inside." She turned around, met up with the other crew worker, and stepped into the ship.

There were many hugs and goodbyes for Mort, Rolf, and Fargle, but Spiff ha no time for any of that crap. He immediately marched up the _Blue Lightning_'s ramp and into the entrance room, where the crew members were quite surprised to see him. "A little anxious, are we?" asked one.

"No, just ambitious," responded Spiff.

After a few minutes, the other boys had all arrived, and the crew led them through a door and down a hallway. The hallway opened up into a sort of computer room, where the ship's main observational tools were located- cameras, laptops, radar, and the like. Spiff had no time to explore just yet, however, for the crew continued to lead the boys through another door. This door led to a long, empty hallway, and at the end of it was, at long last, the cockpit.

The cockpit consisted of four identical chairs, each pointing toward an enormous set of controls. There were dials, buttons, joysticks, flashing lights, labels, and all sorts of other things that boggled the mind. Spiff had no idea that flying a ship would be so complicated.

Mort must have noticed him gaping, because he tapped him on the shoulder and said, "I'll be doing the flying, Space Guy. Don't freak out TOO bad!"

"Take your seats, buddies," said one pit crew member. Said the other, "You're taking off immediately!"

Spiff leaped into the farthest-right seat and strapped himself in. He felt his chest- his heart was pounding. His breath was short and fast. He could barely contain himself. It'd been ten long years, but Spacemanhood was near! And he was about to take his first journey into-

The ship rumbled to life. Spiff turned to his left, and saw Mort with his hands on the steering stick, with an enthusiastic smirk on his face. The _Blue Lightning _rose above the floor, and Spiff heard its landing jacks retract back into its body. It accelerated to a sizable speed - perhaps 10-20 miles per hour – and flew through the hangar, underneath a small doorway, into an isolated chamber. The chamber consisted of a small, rectangular area, with four walls and a solid door at each end.

The back door of the chamber closed behind the _Blue Lightning_. Somewhere inside it, Spiff heard a computerized voice announce:

"Prepare for depressurization. Entering vacuum of space in ten…

Nine…

Eight…"

Mort's hand tightened around the throttle. Rolf stared straight forward.

"Seven…

Six…"

Fargle leaned back as far as he could in his chair.

"Five…

Four…"

Spiff bounced up and down a couple of times. He couldn't help himself.

"Three…

Two…

One…"

Though no one had been speaking, the cockpit seemed to get even quieter. There was so much tension that the air seemed to be getting sucked out of the room (when it was actually about to get sucked out of the depressurization chamber).

"Liftoff!"

Mort pushed forth the throttle at lightning speed. For a moment, the sound of the engines rocketing forward could be heard; but when the doors opened, and the _Blue Lightning _blasted into the beautiful blackness of space, only one sound could be heard- Spiff screaming, at the top of his lungs:

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"


	11. A Confrontation

Several hours had passed since launch. Spiff's initial excitement had given way to impatient boredom, and he'd been occupying his time pacing and reading the computer's Planet Gallery file on Q-13. It being an unknown planet, there wasn't much in the file; it was yellow, it was deserty, and that was all they knew. The movable 3D model was fun to play with, though.

Spiff had been alone in the computer room, until he heard a door open behind him. He turned around to see Rolf walking in.

"Hau are yu feelink?" asked the older boy.

"You know, Rolf, I think I'm finally starting to barely understand what you're saying," Spiff sardonically replied. He went back to playing with the model. Rolf, quite impatient, grabbed him by the shoulders and droned, "Howwww arrrrrrre yyyyoooooouuuuuu feeeeeeeliiiiiiiinnnnnggg?"

Spiff blinked. "Oh... Oh, I get it. Uh. Why do you want to know?"

Rolf released his grip on Spiff's shoulders. "Becauhss, yu- ohhh, c'mere..." He pushed Spiff away from the computer and quit out of the Planet Gallery program. Spiff protested, "Hey!", but Rolf ignored him. He clicked on a program labelled "Note Taker 17.3", which turned about to be a word processing program.

Rolf placed his hands on the keyboard and typed, "You never talk to anyone. And now you seem mad for some reason. I wanted to see if there was a problem." When he finished, he stepped away and motioned for Spiff to type something.

Spiff read over Rolf's message, thought for a moment, and typed:

"i dont talk to you because i dont like you. and im not mad im just really really bored"

Rolf typed: "Why don't you like me?"

Spiff typed: "youre friends with mort and you talk too much"

Rolf: "How do I talk too much? Nobody else has ever told me that."

Spiff: "well its not like you talk too much i just cant understand what your saying and it ticks me off"

"That's not very nice. I can't help how I sound."

"yeah yeah but it still bothers me and anyway its not really why i dont like you"

"Well then why dont you?"

As Rolf typed this, Spiff scoffed and said, "You really don't know?"

Rolf started to say "Vat du yu meen?" but he cut himself off and returned to the keyboard: "No, I really don't, I'm sorry. Why?"

Rolf went over the past few days in his head. Spiff was about to take the keyboard from him, but Rolf pushed his hand away and kept typing:

"Is it because of the thing with the rocks?"

"YES!" typed Spiff. "MORT WAS TRYING TO TRAP ME AND YOU SAID NOTHING! I HAD TO GET OUT ALL BY MYSELF!"

"I said I was sorry. Mort was pulling on me."

"you could have told hiM NO! YOU COUldve said you had to help me 1st!"

"But Mort needed my help."

"so did I! why do you always have to do what that meatbrain wants?"

"He's my friend. I know he's mean sometimes but he just thinks he's having fun. I told him to stop."

"yeah and he DIDN'T!"

"Look, you just have to let him be around you for a while. He'll warm up to you."

"yeah like how he warmed up to fargul?"

"It's Fargle_. _And he doesn't like to talk to people."

"neither do i but youre talking to me anyway"

"I'm just worried about you. I wanted to talk to you."

Spiff broke the silence by saying aloud, "Yeah, and I don't want to talk! So butt out of my face! And if you're so worried about me, why didn't you worry about Fargle? Huh?"

Rolf, it seemed, had no response to this. He simply stared unblinkingly at the screen. The awkward silence was broken briefly by the sound of the door opening again, but after it did, the silence returned.

Spiff turned around. At the door was Fargle, who seemed to want to say something, but was having a very difficult time actually saying it. He stammered, "Um... Uh... Er... M-M-Mort..."

"Mort...?" said Spiff.

"Mort... Mort wants..."

Spiff inched a bit closer to the boy. "What does he want?"

The ship echoed with the faint sound of Mort's voice. "What Mr. Quiet's trying to tell you is that I want you in your seats! We're landing in a minute!"

"Yeah..." said Fargle, who swiftly turned around and started to run back to the cockpit.

"Fargle! Wait!" shouted Spiff.

Halfway through the hall, Fargle stopped running. He turned around, and looked back. "W...W...What?"

Spiff started walking to his side. "I wanted to ask you something," he said. He turned back at Rolf and smiled. At first, it was a gloating smirk, but then it turned into something more friendly. He kept walking and closed the door.


	12. In for a Landing

The bright yellow terrain of planet Q-13, completely untouched by human life, finally began to stir as the _Blue Lightning _came in for a landing. The ship fumbled the final stretch, nearly crashing into a nearby mountain, but managed to stick the landing without causing any damage to the ship. It did, unfortunately, accidentally open the underside ramp, which 3/4ths of the exploring team was standing on.

"GAAAAAAAH!" screamed Spiff, Rolf, and Fargle simultaneously. They fell a good 10 feet before hitting the ramp and tumbling onto the ground. All were too surprised and winded to move, so the three of them just lay there.

Spiff's disoriented mind began to clear as soon as he caught a whiff of the smell. He couldn't tell what it was, but something nearby smelled like smoke mixed with vomit. It would have made him sick, if he wasn't feeling pretty sick already. As he searched around with his hands, trying to get a hold of whatever the smell was coming from, he eventually realized that it was the Q-13 surface itself.

Spiff's vision was still blurry and indistinct. He strained really hard, and managed to clear his sight enough to catch sight of the ground. It was a yellowish color, just as it looked from space, and was strangely slimy and mucky. Hoping to get away from the smell, Spiff struggled to pull himself onto his knees, and, with difficulty, managed to stagger to his feet. Thankfully, the smell did indeed fade.

In front of him, Rolf had already managed to get up himself, and was pulling Fargle to his feet. The _Blue Lightning _stood behind them, and Mort was triumphantly striding out of it. "Make way for the master pilot! No need to thank me, boys," he boasted.

Spiff made a little noise that was half moan and half growl. "Y-y-you moron!" he shouted, though it was more of a loud mumble. "You nearly got us killed!"

Mort looked hurt. "What? You had a little tumble, whatever! You're okay, right? What's the problem?"

Rolf cut in: "Zee _problem _iss zat you drove soh recklessly, you almost crashed into zat mountain!" He pointed to the large peak that loomed above the spaceship.

Fargle timidly slinked away, while the other three boys continued to quarrel. Their arguments dissolved into indistinct ranting, and they drew so close to each other that they were starting to bump into each other. Mort got so angry that he started to throw a punch at Spiff's face, and was only interrupted by a beeping noise coming from his belt.

The voice of Migget Awol sounded from four radios at once. "Awol to Lightning, Awol to Lightning," it said, "Good work on the landing- do you have anything to report?"

Spiff groaned. "Oh boy, _Migget's _watching us?" Mort removed his radio from its holster and held it up to his lips. "Uh, Mort here. Q-13's as yellow down here as it is up there. Something smells like dying bloodhounds, and the ground is…" He stomped his feet a few times on the ground, which bounced and sloshed like a water bed. "The ground is Jell-O or something."

"And the ground has pimples!" Spiff shouted, pointing to one of the many holes that dotted the landscape. Inside it was a weird, festering mass of thick goop.

The radio beeped again. "That sounds… unusual," said Awol. "We didn't expect anything like that from our off-site research. You should look into that in the morning."

Mort blinked. Spiff stuttered, "The- the morning?"

"Yes, the morning," Awol's voice continued. "It's sunset. You should be turning in soon."

"Sunset?" said Mort. He looked above him. The vibrant golden sky still looked very bright. "I just figured the sky was yellow."

"According to our research, it should be more of an orange color during the day. It gets yellower as the sun sets. So, where will you be sleeping?"

Mort paused sheepishly for a moment. He hadn't considered that at all. "Uh-h-h, well, you know. We'll just sleep on the ship."

"Really?" said Awol, with a smug tone of voice. "Why not the cave?"

Mort blinked again. "Cave?"

"YEAH, CAVE!" sounded Spiff's voice, from what sounded strangely far away. Mort turned around toward the mountain, and saw an enormous, impossible-to-miss hole in the side of it. At the base was Spiff, giving a sarcastic wave.

Mort raised his eyebrows. He gulped and smiled awkwardly in his team's direction. He clicked on the radio, but he couldn't find any words to say. He walked over to the cave, silently, humiliated.

Spiff was grinning from ear to ear. Mort was easier to trick than he looked. "Good eye, Mort. With eyesight like that, it's no wonder you're such a great pilot."

"Shut your mouth, Hero Boy," Mort growled. "Let's just get inside."

The inside of the cave was a deep, bright red, so deep and bright that it almost looked artificial. The walls were unusually rounded and smooth, as if they had been eroded. The large, spacious interior seemed to stretch on for miles. The inner areas were as big or almost as big as the mouth, so as Mort and Spiff ventured deeper inside, there was still more than enough light to see.

"Pretty big cave, huh?" Spiff observed. "That's weird. That doesn't really happen naturally, does it? I think there needs to be something living in here for a cave to look like this."

Mort shrugged. "This isn't Earth, or Mars or Zorg or Plootarg or any planet we know about. Weird stuff can happen on unknown planets."

Their conversation was interrupted by a change in lighting. The many miles of the cave were slowly fading from view, and the color of the light was steadily growing softer and darker.

"Oh, man, it'll be dark any minute now," Mort said cautiously. "Rolf and Fargle are back at the ship?"

"Getting supplies," Spiff answered. "Should be here any minute now."

Mort nodded. "Then we'd better find a place to sleep." He walked on, scanning the wide spaces around him, searching for a place that looked inviting. The cave stretched on for what looked like miles. He walked to the left wall and felt it. It was as smooth as it looked. A little wet. He felt the ground below him. It was soft and a bit squishy. He continued on, for a few more yards, then felt the walls and ground again. It felt the same as before. He repeated the process again- the exact same as before… it was _all _the same as before… the cave was all the same.

Mort slowly turned back in Spiff's direction, blushing. Spiff was smirking with his hands on his hips. "My, what a difficult search," he remarked.

Footsteps sounded from the entrance, and Rolf and Fargle's long shadows stretched outward through the inside. Both were carrying two sleeping bags, with Rolf holding a cooler and Fargle holding a lantern. As they neared closer, Fargle seemed to be struggling.

"Hey, let me help you, Fargle!" called Spiff. He rushed over and took the lantern, which lightened the boy's load considerably. Mort realized what Spiff was doing and rushed over himself, to Rolf. He hurriedly asked, "Need, uh, any help, pal?"

Rolf gave him an amused look. "Noh, mein lovable leader," he said, "I kan handle zese."

Mort grumbled.

It had seemed like midday only 20 minutes ago, but by now, the light in the cave had dwindled down to a small yellow glow. The boys hurriedly laid out their sleeping bags and grabbed some sandwiches for dinner. Just as Spiff finished struggling into his bag, the light finally went out, and the cave was dark.

"Alright, Sergeant, we've turned in for the night," Mort said into his radio. No voice came out of it, but there was at least a beep of confirmation. He looked angrily in Spiff's direction, and settled down to sleep.


	13. Rude Awakening

Spiff's sleeping eyes pried open. He'd been having a good rest, but a strange feeling had woken him up. It was as if the ground was moving in waves, like the ocean. His body was lightly being bounced up and down, and as his eyes adjusted to the early light of sunrise, he saw that the same was happening to his partners. Mort had already gotten up, and was on his hands and knees examining the ground. Fargle was cowering inside his sleeping bag. Rolf, apparently unpertubed, was still lying casually in his own bag, awake but quite peaceful.

"W-w-what's going on?" Spiff demanded as he bounced.

Rolf shrugged. "Dis plenet hes a fery unique surfess. Meybe dis heppens effery morning?"

Spiff gulped. "I'm… I'm not so sure…"

The rhythm of the ground was bouncing faster now. If he listened closely, Spiff could hear faint thumping noises that accompanied each bounce. The thumping sounded very, very familiar.

"Guys…?" Spiff mumbled.

"Quiet!" shouted Mort. "I think I'm on to something here!" He had been staring at the same spot on the ground for five minutes.

Now, Spiff heard a low guttural noise. The sound filled him with a very familiar sense of dread. Slowly, cautiously, he turned around.

Coming toward the group was a towering behemoth of a monster. It was colored varying shades of putrid puke-green, with three blue eyes, massive powerful legs, a segmented tail, and the biggest, nastiest, toothiest, ugliest Spiff-sized jaw you'd ever see.

It was a Zorg - A _real _Zorg – and it looked _hungry!_

Spiff screamed, "RUN!" and took off immediately. Rolf quickly grabbed his possessions and followed him, while Mort stumbled for a moment before following. Fargle, to his credit, immediately tore his way through his sleeping bag and dashed away at 3 or 4 miles per hour, leaving the remaining supplies behind.

Everyone was following his lead, but Spiff had no idea where he was going. He wasn't familiar with the area, and he had no plan to escape or hide. He looked back practically every five seconds. Each time, the Zorg got a little closer. The creature had taken time to eat the rest of the team's food, buying them a bit of time, but evidently it was still hungry. It was slower than its huge legs would suggest, but that didn't mean it wasn't fast- and it was certainly faster than four teenage boys. It wouldn't be long until it caught up to them.

Mort's radio crackled. Without missing a beat, he grabbed it and screamed, "T-T-TROUBLE! TROUBLE! TROUBLLLLLLE!"

Awol's voice gasped in surprise. "Repeat that? Repeat that, cadets! I don't understand!"

Mort was out of breath. He could only repeat, "tro… troub… troub…. tro…"

Rolf spied a rock off to his right and ran for it, leaving his comrades behind. He pressed down on his own radio and shouted, "Awol! We heff a problem! Beeg Zorg! Beeg Zorg cheyssing uss!"

"A _Zorg?" _Awol replied. "That's impossible! Zorg aren't native to this system!"

"I do no care! Ve need assistance! Ve need assi-"

An enormous spaceship flew just over Rolf's head. It was bean-shaped and a dark purple color, and it propelled itself along with a blast of green energy from its backside. Rolfsaw it clearly for only a moment, but it appeared to have two large closed hatches on its underside, one square-shaped and one circle-shaped.

Peeking out over his rock, Rolf saw that the ship was headed straight for the Zorg. As it neared, the circular hatched opened, and out came a giant laser cannon, aimed straight at the Zorg. It fired once, and the Zorg went down and stopped moving. The ship circled the body, fired again, and landed just in front of the giant dead beast.

A bit behind Rolf's rock, and to the right, Mort gave a loud hoot. "That was _incredible!" _he laughed. "Did you _see _that? One shot! One shot and the whole thing went down! Ha ha ha!" He ran off toward the giant ship.

Spiff and Fargle weren't quite so energetic as Mort was. They were lying on the ground in exhaustion.

"We… almost… died!" Fargle panted. "I… didn't even… see that… coming!"

"Yeah…" Spiff replied. He thanked his lucky stars that ship came. He'd completely failed as a leader back there- no plan, no strategy, no commands… he felt ashamed. What sort of Spaceman was he? A Spaceman had to live on his own! He couldn't rely on others to save him- …Hey. How did that ship know where we were, anyway?

"Hey, yeah, how did they?" asked Fargle.

Spiff blinked. "What are you talking about…?"

"You're right, how did they know where we were?"

Spiff blinked again. "Did I say that out loud?"

"Yes…"

"Huh." He paused for a moment. "Let's find out?" He stood up and offered his hand. Fargle gladly took it and followed Mort in the direction of the ship.

As he got close, Mort saw the ship's rectangular hatch open. It squeaked like a rusty door handle and let out sparks as it hit the ground, which betrayed the ship's shiny and new appearance.

After a moment, three tall creatures walked down the sloping hatch. They were like giant bipedal bugs, towering over the boys, with orange exoskeletons and bright red eyes. They had weapons in their claws, but were holding them down to the side, so they didn't seem ready to shoot.

The three other boys had gathered in a line around Mort to greet their saviors, but for a moment they were all speechless. Mort shuffled his feet, looked to his left and right, took a breath, and finally broke the silence with a bellow of "Greetings!"

The aliens didn't respond. They stopped at the foot of the ramp, in a line identical to the boys, and stared eerily in their direction.

Very reluctantly, Mort broke out of the line and stretched out his hand. "My name is Mort. These are, uh, my comrades. We're visiting your planet- uh, is this your planet? Do you live…? Uh, I mean, you know, is this your place or are you just visiting too or…?"

None of the aliens shook his hand. They remained silent. What they _did _do was pull out their guns and fire.

Fargle screamed, and Rolf shouted Mort's name, but the blast didn't kill him. In fact, it was hardly even a blast: the guns shot out strange blasts of black energy, which combined to envelop Mort in a sort of bag, which one alien quickly scooped up. Before the other boys even had time to react, they were each met with their own blasts of insta-cage, and were knocked out completely.


	14. Locked Up

Spiff woke up violently when his head hit a wall and his body hit a floor. His vision was mostly splotches and shapes, there was a terrible ringing in his ears, and he had yet to remember what he'd been doing or what had happened, but he still made an attempt to assess the area:

He saw, through his muddied vision, that he was in a small square room with pour perfectly smooth walls, three of which were dark purple and one of which was glowing bright pink. He felt around aimlessly and called out various mumbles, like "uuwu?" and "bwahh?" He heard no response. He got on his hands and knees and started crawling about the cell, quite slowly since he still couldn't see a thing.

After a few moments, he suddenly found his hands reaching around something big and warm, and before he even realized it, he'd fallen on top of it and off the other side. The thing screamed, "OW!", and Spiff's vision had cleared enough for him to realize that it was Fargle.

"Fuh-Fuh-Fargle?" Spiff mumbled. "Are you there?"

Fargle was still lying in a heap on the floor. "Oh… W-w-what... happened?"

With some difficulty, Spiff managed to get up on his knees. He tried to stand up, but that made him fall over, so he gave up on that. "I… uh… I think I see Mort and Rolf here too…?" Two other bodies were, indeed, lying down near them.

"Yah," called Rolf's voice. Then another voice, one distinctly crackly and quiet, asked, "come in, Blue Lightning! Blue Lightning, come in, this is Arpenholl!"

Nobody moved. Everyone was still in some terrible pain, and no one was entirely sure that they'd heard anything.

"Blue Lightning, this is Arpenholl! Blue Lightning!"

Mort's leg twitched. Spiff put his head between his legs while Fargle made a soft moaning sound.

"B…Blue Lightning! Come in! …O-O-Over?"

Rolf managed to gather up his strength and reach for Mort's belt, where the voice was coming from. He found the radio, pressed the button, and tried to respond- "Yah! Yah! Here! Here!" was all he managed.

The voice came back. "Thank the stars! You guys just cut out, we thought you got eaten or something!" Spiff was now sentient enough to recognize the voice as Paulo's.

Rolf responded with another "Yah… here…" Mort crawled toward the radio with one hand, intending to take it, but he kept stopping to hold his breath every few feet. Spiff finally regained enough sanity to take the radio himself and say, "We're trapped, Paulo! No idea where we are!"

"Trapped?! Where?"

"I _just said_, we have no idea where we are! _GOSH_!"

Fargle tapped his leg. "It's a jail cell," he said.

Spiff nodded and repeated into the radio, "It's a jail cell! …Wait, it's a jail cell?" He turned to Fargle and asked, "How do you know that?"

Fargle gestured to the walls surrounding them. On closer look, it certainly did look like a jail cell: the dark purple walls were bare and ugly, and covered with scratchy writing. The glowing pink wall, Spiff realized, was in fact a high-tech energy barrier that covered the entire width and height of the cell. Spiff guessed that it would shock him if he got close.

He turned to Mort's radio. "Yeah, it's definitely a jail cell."

"An… alien jail cell…!" Mort muttered from nearby. Spiff gave him a little "be-quiet" kick.

Paulo responded: "Well. We'll, uh, try to trace your location, I guess. Where were you- hey! Sergeant, I-" The radio crackled and muffled. Paulo could be heard struggling with someone else on the other side. They evidently managed to get the receiver away from in him, because a moment later, Awol's voice sounded:

"Blue Lightning! What in Jupiter's name is going on? You haven't made any scheduled reports! And what's this about a jail cell?"

Spiff couldn't help smirking, even though Awol couldn't see it. "You seem awful _concerned _about us, Migget!"

"W-what?! No, I- I'm just- this is protocol! I- you're out of line asking something like that!" He grumbled indistinctly.

"Whatever you say!" Spiff said, still smirking. "Say, uh, do you know about any aliens in this area?"

"There _are _no aliens in this area," Awol said without any hesitation.

Spiff's smile dropped. His eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that the entire Q sector is barren. We've explored all of them except 13. There is no animal life on any of them."

"But the Zorg!" shouted Fargle. Everyone else looked at him in surprise. He covered his mouth and lowered his head.

"Uh, yes, the Zorg," said Spiff. "There was a Zorg in the cave we stayed in. It chased us out and it would have eaten us if the aliens hadn't come and shot it down."

Awol took an uncomfortably long time to chime back in. "There's something funny going on," he said at last. "Zorg aren't native to this sector. They're practically on the opposite end of the system. There's no way one could naturally exist on- wait, what do you mean _the aliens_?"

"Uh, the aliens that _captured us?_" Spiff said with a roll of the eyes. "Whose jail cell do you think this is, the Klingons'?"

Awol grumbled. "Whatever, whatever, shut up! Fact is, there shouldn't be intelligent life around either. We've checked with every allied planet and empire, even some enemies, and Q-13 is almost definitely unexplored. We wouldn't have sent you if… if…" He trailed off and repeated, "Something funny is going on."

"Unt here iss somesink else!" cried Rolf.

The team all glanced at him, and then at the pink barrier, where he was pointing. On the other side were two of those same aliens. In a flash, the barrier disappeared, the creatures said something unintelligible, and they each grabbed two boys in either arm.

Spiff was being held very tightly and he felt short of breath. He called, "C-c-catch you later, Migget!" and, to his dismay, dropped the radio on the ground, leaving it behind.

"Th-the valiant Spaceman Spiff has been captured!" he said to himself. This had turned into a habit, narrating his own life. "Where are these dastardly aliens taking him?!"


	15. Meet the Enemy

The nefarious aliens were carrying Blue Lightning down a long, narrow hallway. The hallway was cylinder-shaped and colored a medium pink, with square-shaped doorways jutting out on both sides.

Spiff was in bad shape. The guard's iron grip felt like it was tightening with each step it took, and he felt like he was about to pass out. He very briefly wondered how the others were doing, but he was in no position to move his head (or anything else). All he could see were the feet of the aliens and the curved pink floor. As he stared, the floor began to seem like it was turning purple, then blue, then silver; Spiff thought that he was hallucinating and about to pass out.

Then the guard dropped him, he hit the ground with a painful thud, and he realized that his vision was, in fact, accurate. They were no longer inside the pink hallway; they had entered a larger, circular room, which had many other aliens inside it but was disturbingly bare. The aliens were all using their ugly thick fingers to poke at what appeared to be blank pieces of metal. As Spiff's thoughts returned to him, he wondered if they were looking at something that the human eye couldn't see.

"Grumpleumple! " shouted the guard that had carried Spiff. He pointed at the far wall, where a large screen was visible. Everyone in the room turned to it dutifully.

With little more than a beep, the screen switched from blank nothingness to an image of a fearsome monster. It had a head like a praying mantis, and two tentacles for arms, one of which carried a red scepter. Its head was bright blue, its body puke-green, and its tentacles bright orange- one hell of a garish combination.

The monster looked around the room with contempt. Aliens bowed to it whenever it looked in their direction. Spiff and Rolf, sensing the gravity of the situation, bowed as well. The monsters eyes settled on Blue Lightning, and it scowled.

"Earthlings!" it screamed. Its voice was like a howler monkey's. "What are Earthlings doing here?"

"Uhhh, yes, we are Earthlings!" Mort said hastily. He glanced around quickly, saw that everyone was bowing, and did the same. "Good to see someone who speaks English!" he said, trying to give an air of humility (and failing). He looked back at Fargle, who wasn't bowing and kicked him in the legs to send him off his feet.

The creature looked immensely unhappy. As it seethed, it said, "you horrible humans are unwelcome in our territory!"

Mort was incredulous. "YOUR territory? Uh, no, I don't think so, buddy! **We're **the ones exploring here! And for your information, Q-13 is entirely uninhabited-"

"**OUR! TERRITORY!" **screamed the monster. "We are the Zorg, and we control this quadrant! I am the Emperor, and we acknowledge no other Empire!"

"The Zorg?" Spiff cut in. "Could, uh, could we call you something else? We already have an animal called the Zorg, and… uh… uh, never mind."

The Zorg leader, somehow, looked even less pleased. "You don't know about us! That's good. Our efforts to avoid puny humans have paid off handsomely. We make no contact to you, except to those that we kill! Now, we shall do to you what we do to every other pathetic flesh bag that crosses our path: imprisonment until death!"

Blue Lightning's faces fell. Fargle screamed. "No! Please! This is my first mission, I don't want to die!"

"All the better!" cried the awful Zorg. "Unwilling starvation is so much… _tastier!" _

Fargle started to cry. He continued, the sound slightly muffled, even as the same guards picked them back up and carried them back to their cells.

Spiff wasn't a crier. He was a seether. His mind filled with thoughts of violently destroying these terrible Zorg. He thought back to everything he'd read about Spacemen, about their daring escapes and heroic rescues. As he thought, he came up with a plan.

It was a dangerous plan, one that would surely get him killed if he failed.

But he was going to die anyway, so what was the risk of trying, really?


	16. Escape!

You know, if you stared at it for long enough, that pink cell door could get pretty mesmerizing.

Spiff had been staring at it for the past… well, he wasn't even sure how long it'd been. But it had been a long time. It was hard to stare at anything else when he was chained up on a wall, five feet above the ground with his arms bound above his head.

He was waiting for the others to fall asleep. He imagined that they must be tired, since _he _was all tired out, and they were clearly much weaker than him. He'd have fallen asleep himself, if he wasn't keeping his eyes fixed on the glowing gate. But every time he glanced away to check, the other boys were all wide awake, staring off in different directions and looking just as bored.

Every once in a while, Rolf would try to chime in with a "how are ve dooink?", and sometimes Mort would answer "fine" or Fargle would answer "lousy", but Spiff never said anything.

Finally, after what seemed like days, he took another look and saw that all three of his teammates were fast asleep. Now was his chance! Thinking back to a time in his youth (well, his _younger _youth) when he learned how to break handcuffs, Spiff attempted the same technique – which did a number on his thumbs, but they were strong thumbs and could tough it out – and to his delight, the chains broke apart easily! Slightly less to his delight, a few improper movements sent his body tumbling headfirst onto the floor.

Spiff dusted himself off and nervously checked the other boys. Still asleep! Good!

Next, as stealthily as he could manage, he felt along the wall for cracks, found one, and hoisted himself up. There didn't seem to be any more near him, but he saw that he might be able to jump straight up to the ceiling and grab onto a loose tile. After three failed attempts at this (which only increased his fear that he'd wake the other boys), he finally managed to grab on, push the tile aside, and jump into the air vents.

In the safety of the ventilation shaft, Spiff couldn't help giggling. "Spaceman Spiff has escaped his captors!" he laughed as he crawled along. "He's left behind his useless comrades and his on his way to freedom! It all seems too easy. Sure, he had noticed those cracks and tiles before, and he knew the trick to undoing binds, but who'd have thought that it would have all worked? Somehow, this entirely alien technology ,devised by creatures that hated humans, was completely beatable by one! Why, it was so simple that it hardly seems-"

The shaft gave way underneath him, and he tumbled down.

He hit the floor beneath him at an angle- because, to his dismay, it was inclined. He painfully bounced down the slope before getting thrown out through a distended exhaust pipe.

He was outdoors now. Sand was flaring into his eyes and the wind was blowing so fast that he couldn't keep his footing. He could barely see, but he realized that he had fallen onto the ship's wing. At some point, the ship must have taken off without them noticing, and if he didn't figure something out quick he was going to get thrown off!

Spiff looked for some place, any place, to hold onto the ship, but the wing was perfectly smooth. He grabbed for his utility belt, but it had been taken. He spat on his fingers to try and make them stick to the metal, but they did not. There was absolutely nothing he could do to stop himself from being blown clean off of the ship and into the abyss below…


	17. What Scum

Spiff woke up on top of some kind of cold, smooth, hard surface, feeling confused and disoriented. He was getting quite sick of waking up feeling confused and disoriented.

This time, at least, the light was decent. He looked up and saw that he was indoors, in a strange room that was covered entirely in a sleek, silver metal, from the floor to the ceiling- a ceiling that, to Spiff, seemed to be miles above him. All around the room were giant contraptions that made the bizarre "boink" noises and flashed blinding bright lights.

Spiff thought for a moment that he was seeing things. The oversized, alien machines and the bright lights certainly felt like a hallucination, and it would hardly have been the first time it happened today. But it was quite real.

Spiff reached for his radio to inform Awol of his location. It wasn't there. He felt all around his whole uniform for it, sticking his fingers in every pocket and feeling around every shirt seam, before remembering that he'd just been captured. The other-Zorgs, surely, would have taken it from him. And he hadn't thought to go look for it when he had the chance, because _of course his stupid face didn't! Augh!_

Spiff sighed. "The intrepid Spaceman Spiff is trapped in an unknown overgrown laboratory!" he said to no one. "Lost in this mysterious metallic world, he is unbound but surrounded by boundaries! He has nowhere to go! Could he _ever _escape?"

The ground began to shake. It was a rhythmic quaking, not unlike the footsteps of the Zorg monster, but much stronger and _much _louder.

"Zounds!" Spiff shouted. "The ground has started to quake! Has this room's gargantuan occupant decided to show its face?"

Indeed, it had. One of the giant walls shuffled open, like a sliding door, and revealed a massive beast. It was shaped roughly like a human, only one apparently covered in pond scum, and incredibly huge. Proportionately, Spiff was around the size of a mouse compared to it. It looked very cruel and dangerous.

"Egad! Spiff's captor is a monster that can only be described as a Scum Being! What sort of unspeakable plans could it have in store for-"

The Scum Being bent over and snatched him up. He made a soft squeaking noise as he was compressed into the palm of its hand. He wasn't hurt, but he could barely move a muscle and could only see the faint rays of light that shone through the Being's fingers. He most certainly couldn't continue his little inner monologue.

So, helpless, Spiff sat while the Scum Being walked back out through the door and into… well, whatever was on the other side of the door. They seemed to be outside, judging by the light rays' changing color, but he wasn't sure.

After a few minutes' trek, the Scum Being stopped walking. Spiff heard a soft whooshing sound, which got louder and more familiar as it went on. The wind picked up, and it blew some dust between the Being's fingers, sending Spiff into a hacking fit.

Suddenly, the Scum Being opened its fingers. The still-wheezing Spiff was blinded by the influx of light. The Scum Being placed his body on the ground, and he squinted to see a few shadows above him.

"S-S-Spiff?" asked Fargle's voice. Spiff jumped up.

"What? Who? Huh?" he asked. He was on his feet, the sand was out of his eyes, and he could see, bright and clear, his Blue Lightning compatriots standing before him. Along with two other-Zorg guards standing on either side, they had just walked out of the very same ship that Spiff had escaped from.

"It IS Spiff!" Mort growled. He started stomping toward the boy. "You no good little twerp! You just left us to die, didn't you? DIDN'T YOU?"

Spiff inched backward. "No! No! Honestly, I didn't! I was gonna come back for you, I swear!" His heart was pounding in his chest and his sweat was pouring out. He was lying. He _hadn't _planned on coming back for them. But it wasn't really on purpose! He wouldn't have done it if he knew they'd find out!

Mort lifted his fists. The two guards tensed up. "I'm sick of your damned lies, 'hero'! Eat THIS!" He socked Spiff square in the jaw.

The force knocked Spiff right onto his back. He lay there for a second rubbing his swollen chin. When he looked up, he saw Mort being restrained by the two Zorg guards, complaining "Come on! He had it coming!"

Spiff sneered. "Yeah, you tell that jerk, alien guys! Rolf, can you _believe _he did that?"

Rolf twiddled his fingers. Though he always seemed to have something to say, he was now apparently at a loss for words.

"Come on, Rolf," said Spiff. "You always have my back. Don't you agree he was out of line?"

Rolf twitched some more. He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, the Scum Being spoke.

It was a deep, loud, guttural language that Spiff couldn't make heads or tails of. The guards, however, understood, and responded. The mysterious conversation went on for a few minutes, during which Rolf stared off in thought. It made him look a lot like Fargle, who was doing the same.

Spiff was steaming. Nothing was going right! He had no idea what was going on and his only friends had decided he was some kind of jerk. He was going to _die _in that cell! Surely they understood that he'd want to save himself, no matter what?

"You guys," he said, "are a bunch of as- AUGH!" The Scum Being scooped him back up, plunging him back into the cramped darkness.

The next few minutes were much of the same. The Scum Being stomped along, Spiff couldn't move at all, and he was very confused and very mad. He kept thinking of different ways to get back at that Mort. That stupid, stupid Mort, who thought he could punch Spaceman Spiff and get away with it! He considered blasting him apart with that cool Napalm Neutralizer he knew he'd be getting soon, or slicing him in half with a sword or something, or maybe just giving him a punch right back! He was about to mentally move over to the heavy machinery when the Scum Being dropped him again.

They were right back in the giant lab that Spiff had woken up in, and in the very same room. Most of the lights and beeping machines had been shut off, however, which made Spiff feel very uncomfortable in an already uncomfortable place. From the Scum Being's other hand, out dropped Mort, Fargle and Rolf, looking quite worse for the wear, and almost as unsettled.

The two guards had come along, and they barked an order at the Scum Being in that same ugly tongue. It nodded, turned to a nearby terminal, and pressed one of the lights.

The giant ceiling lit up like a screen. On it was a familiar face, and probably the least welcome sight possible. It was the Zorg leader.

"Hello, friends," it remarked dryly. "It's a pleasure to see you again. A little antsy, are we?" It looked over in Spiff's direction. His teammates glared at him.

Spiff did his best to ignore them. "What's going on here, bozo?" he asked. "I thought these guys- uh, _we _guys were to be chained up until we died!"

The leader grinned. It seemed that was the very question it was hoping for. "That _was _the plan, at first," he said. "We were going to wait until you were dead, because it just seemed more sportsmanlike. But then you, my dear boy, managed to escape, and we realized that we ought to speed up the plan."

"Plan? What _plan_?"

The grin grew wider. "Well, you see, these Drinniol" – it meant the Scum Beings, though Spiff decided he liked his own name better – "are in a serious rut. You see, they've exhausted all of their natural food supply. They animals and plants that they eat are all extinct or nearly extinct. So, with nowhere else to go, they turned to the benevolent old Zorg for help!"

"You… you…" Fargle stammered. "You don't mean…?"

"I mean," said the leader, "that you humans will make a very delicious meal indeed!"


	18. Adrift

'The intrepid Spaceman Spiff is in a rotten spot!' though Spiff to himself. He didn't have the heart in him to monologue aloud at the moment.

He was chained to a wall, right next to his comrades, as the dreadful Scum Being prepared a molten-hot stew to cook them in. He was hanging in between Rolf and Mort, who were furiously ignoring him. Fargle hung by the far end, softly weeping.

'The heroic astronaut is about to be boiled alive!' Spiff's thoughts continued. 'Can he find some way to escape? Can he brave the dangerous-'

"Hey, what the hell are you thinking about?" asked Mort. "Whatever it is, stop. Stop thinking. You stupid little dick, your thinking's gotten us into enough trouble."

The Zorg guards turned and looked sternly at Mort.

Spiff gave a mean look. "They were gonna take us here no matter what. I didn't get us into this mess!"

"_Yeah, but you tried to get OUT!" _Mort snapped. "You broke out and didn't even try to help us out with you!"

"And why would I want to help a chowderhead like _you?" _Spiff sassed back. "I didn't owe you guys anything. Right Rolf? You've got my back, right?"

Rolf, who'd been silent ever since the ship landed, exploded. "You ABANDONED uss!" he screamed. "You LEAVE USS FUR DEAD! Und you tink I haff your back? NO!"

The Zorg were still staring at the kids. Neither of them made a move. Not understanding English, they had no idea what to do with this situation. During a pause in the conversation, both separately decided that there was no cause for alarm.

Spiff stared at Rolf for a moment, deep in thought. He couldn't believe what he'd heard. He'd expected disbelief from the likes of Mort, but Rolf was supposed to be different. "I thought you'd be better than _this,_ man!" he said.

"Better den _vhat?!_"

"Better than _this!_ I never thought you, of all people, were one to get jealous!"

Rolf's face turned purple. Clearly, this was too much for even him to take. "**JEALOUS?!"**

"Yeah! Jealous of my skills! You're mad because _I _could escape and _you_ couldn't!"

"Your SKILLS? YOUR _SKILLS? _You, you leetle samenerguss! You haff ze skills off a rodent! You could not escape from ah **bedroom!"**

Spiff smirked. "Oh yeah?" he said. "Then how do you explain… THIS?"

He jumped off the wall and threw off his chains. It was the same exact lock picking trick he pulled back on the Zorg ship.

The Zorg guards were on him instantly. But Spiff was on a roll. He gave a good solid kick to one's chest, and took the opportunity to steal its Frap Ray blaster. He fired a blast and – _frap! _– it disintegrated. The other had barely any time to react before it, took, got zapped into charcoal.

Spiff spun around to face his partners and twirled the blaster into his empty holster. He struck a pose and said, "How's that for skills, eh boys?"

The boys seemed disappointingly unimpressed. They didn't say a word. They just stared at him. Actually, it was more like they were staring at something _behind_ him…

…_Behind him?!_

Spiff turned around just in time to see and dodge the Scum Being's tremendous hand. It was mere inches away from him. It roared, and swung again; Spiff leapfrogged over and shot off three Frap Ray blasts, one at each lock on a Blue Lightninger's chain. In true Spiff fashion, he didn't miss one shot.

The boys tumbled to the floor and immediately jumped to their feet. They immediately ran towards - well – _anything! _They weren't sure where the exit was, but staying put meant being snatched and possibly eaten by the Scum Being. There was certainly no stopping it; Spiff blasted at it a few times, and nothing happened at all.

Each boy seemed to run to a different corner. Spiff nearly found himself tangled in a bunch of wires; Mort pounded uselessly on a blank wall; Fargle cowered under a table; but Rolf, good old Rolf, found the real-deal door, and called out, "This vay!"

The Scum Being chased after them, of course, but that happened to be exactly what Rolf was banking on. The door was shut tight and Blue Lightning had no chance of opening it, but the Scum Being certainly did. The second it drew near, the door swung open, and the boys poured out.

They tore back into the desert of Q-13. They had no idea where they were, same as always; they could only keep running and hope there was another squishy cave somewhere nearby, hopefully Zorg-free this time.

Spiff looked back. The Scum Being had bumped its head on the door and fell over, buying them some time, but it had gotten back up. Its strides were enormous and quick; it'd be on them in seconds. Spiff surveyed the scene and saw that Mort had put Fargle on his shoulders and ran ahead, while Rolf and he were both tired and lagging behind. There was another mountain a few hundred yards ahead of them, and it was their only hope that it would contain a cave to hide in.

Spiff panted and wheezed. "Th…the heroic… Spaceman…" Oh, monologing was no use right now! It'd only tire him out faster! The long day, plus the two or three concussions, must have finally been taking its toll on him.

Rolf looked like he was in even worse shape. His strides were short and slow, and he kept tripping. His panting sounded very heavy and labored. His face, normally intelligent and friendly, now showed only despair. Not only was he going slow, he was getting slower- Spiff kept up the pace, while Rolf continued to lag.

The Scum Being was practically upon them now. It probably could've reached its arms out and grabbed them, though it didn't think to do so. Thankfully, they'd reach the mountain, and had started feeling along its base for an entrance. Mort was so far ahead now that he was practically out of sight.

"HEY! THERE'S A CAVE HERE!" cried Mort. Spiff glanced forward a moment, and saw that he had indeed found one. He glanced back, and watched the Scum Being eat Rolf.

It seemed to happen so quick. One moment, Rolf was there, running only slightly behind the rest of them. The next, he was gobbled up. The Scum Being didn't even use its hands. It just swallowed him whole.

Spiff blubbered. "Oh my- OH MY G-" He became rooted to the spot. Something about the sight took all of the fight out of him. The Scum Being looked ready to pounce on him.

"What are you doing?!" cried Mort. "Spiff!"

The Scum Being looked down and saw the boy cowering.

"SPIFF!"

It opened up its palm and reached downward.

"**SPIFF!"**

The giant fingers touched his face.

Then Spiff felt something hard hit him in the side. It knocked him straight into the rock, banging his noggin something awful but saving him from the Scum Being's grasp. The same hard object then grabbed him by the arm and started forcefully tugging Spiff towards Mort's cave.

Spiff looked up and saw that it was Fargle.

The Scum Being roared again, and chased after them again, but by sheer luck, Fargle pulled Spiff and himself into the cave before it was able to take another swing. Too tall to fit in the narrow passage, the Being roared in frustration for a few minutes, then angrily slumped away.

The cave was a small, half-spherical indentation in the rock that was barely even the size of a garage. Spiff lay in the dead center of it, exhausted, afraid, and upset. Mort and Fargle didn't see what happened, but they didn't ask. It was very easy to guess.

It was a long day inside the cave. The boys had no supplies and no way of getting any. They were technically safe to go back outside and look around, but had no clue where they were and no motivation to find out. They stayed inside. Each in their own little corner, sulking, staring, and wishing they were back home.

They didn't say a word to each other. They'd only argue, and at this point, arguing didn't really seem important anymore.


	19. Another Far-Too-Long Day

The sun was just beginning to set. Blue Lightning – what was left of them – had remained in the cave all afternoon, barely even moving an inch.

There was only one moment when any of them got up, and that was when some kind of large ship flew overhead- but whatever kind of ship it was, it had disappeared completely by the time they got outside.

This whole day had been nothing but running and panic. They woke up in danger, and they were about to go to sleep in danger minus one. This was the worst day Spiff had yet lived through, and probably the worst he ever would.

He was still lying in the middle of the cave. He hadn't moved. He'd barely even blinked, his eyes focused on a particular point on the ceiling. He was thinking. He was thinking, 'Rolf died because of me.'

He'd gone over the whole moment in his mind. Even though his eyes had been on Rolf the whole time, he still felt like he'd missed something. The guy just disappeared so fast. Boom, he went straight down the pipe, one gulp, without even the tiniest little squeak. And, even if indirectly, it was Spiff's fault.

There were so many other possibilities. So many miniscule ways that Rolf could have been saved, if only Spiff had done one thing differently. He could have helped Rolf when he was out of breath, with the beast clearly gaining on him. He could have freed his teammates back on the Zorg ship, instead of abandoning them. He could have searched the cave for monsters before they went to sleep, so the Zorg would have never found them in the first place. Or at least, at the _very least, _he could have treated Rolf better, been nicer and more polite to him, instead of blowing off everything he said.

But he did none of those things, because he was a terrible hero and a terrible leader. Heck- he wasn't _even _a leader. He was just a bratty kid. He was just selfish.

"I'm just selfish," he said out loud. The first thing he'd said in five hours.

More silence. Then Mort: "So, you admit it?"

Spiff's heart sank a little lower. It was what he wanted to hear, but not what he'd hoped to.

"Yeah. I'm a rotten leader. All I ever did for my teammates was get them killed."

"You're, uh… well, I mean, you're, uh… you're not _really… you're _not a leader… really."

Spiff glared. "Thanks."

"Sorry… Sorry. Sorry, I... I… I mean, I'm sorry." Mort was not used to apologizing.

Spiff turned back to the spot on the ceiling. It looked the same. What if this was all he was going to be looking at from now on?

"How are we going to get _home?" _he asked.

"…I don't know," said Mort. "Why would you think I know? Come on-"

"_I was just WONDERING_!" Spiff snapped. "Ugh, you're such a jerk! You only ever insult me! Just shut up."

Back to the ceiling spot. Mort probably did hate him. He always seemed to. He'd made fun of him ever since the first time Spiff walked through the door. He really _had _always insulted him.

Rolf hadn't, though. Rolf never said anything bad to him. But Spiff was a jerk to him anyway, because he was just a jerk to everybody. And the last time Rolf ever spoke to him, he was fighting back, and saying those same awful things.

"Rolf died hating me."

Mort gave a look of pain. It almost looked something like pity. "No... no, that's not true at all, man... He _liked _you, he liked you a whole lot."

"Pfft. Yeah, sure he did. What did I ever do to make him like me?"

"You didn't _do _anything. He just believed in you. He thought you had big dreams and he loved you for that. He had big dreams, too..." He paused. He hoped that someone would interrupt him, but no one did. So he went on: "He wanted to be a Roamer. It got him so excited. He always imagined himself leading this big team of explorers. I always laughed at him. I _laughed _at him... I laughed at _you... _but... _he_ never laughed at you."

Spiff sniffed a little. "Well," he said, "well, okay, there's _one _chump who believed in me. Just one."

Fargle moaned from over in his own corner. "Wh-wh-whats'y your darn problem, huh?" he asked. "I saved your life! I s-saved your life and, and you didn't e'en thank me! I d-d-did something u-useful for once in m-m-my stupid life and you, you, you, you DON'T EVEN THANK ME!" He moaned again, sounding even more despairing. He turned away and slumped his head against the squishy wall. "You don't even care," he said, slightly muffled. "You j-just whine and whine about your own problems and d-d-don't even think about anyone else's. You nearly died b-but you di'nt b-b-but all you can think 'bout is the one that d-did! You… YOU!" Then he fell silent.

Spiff stared at him. Fargle was surprising him an awful lot today. 'Maybe I've been thinking about him the wrong way,' he thought. Truth was, he'd barely been thinking about him at all. When he did, he saw him as a worthless weakling, but Fargle was no worthless weakling. How could he have been? He'd managed to get into the Academy at his age. Heck, he was younger than Spiff, and Awol specifically said that Spiff was too young- Fargle must have been some kind of prodigy!

Spiff looked over at Fargle. He still had his lonely face pressed into the soft wall. The older boy stood up, and, with great care, made his way to the younger's side. He placed his hand on Fargle's back. Fargle looked up, and their eyes met.

Fargle had very distinctive eyes, a smart little kid's eyes, the kind that looked somewhere in between light blue and light green. It occurred to Spiff that he'd never looked straight at them before.

"Thank you, Fargle," said Spiff. "I owe you a lot. And you deserve better from me."

Fargle just stared. He swallowed down a big gulp. "Oh… th-th-thanks..."

Spiff smiled a real, genuine smile. "No problem! And that goes for you too, Mort!"

Mort, who'd been silently watching from his place in the opposite corner, nodded quizzically.

"Guys," said Spiff, "I've been a jerk. I've always wanted to be a Spaceman, and that was all I've been thinking about. So I didn't do the job I was supposed to! I ignored my teammates 'cause a Spaceman doesn't have teammates, but really, a Spaceman has to do what's right and what he _should_ do, yeah?"

The other boys just gaped.

"I-In fact," Spiff continued, on a roll, "Really, being a Spaceman's all _about _working with other people! And not just, you know, normal people, but unknown aliens! So I should really have been doing better anyway!"

"Uh, right?" said Mort.

"In fact," said Spiff, "I'm gonna get started on being a leader right now! I'm gonna get us out of this cave! Er, off of this planet! Uh, both!" He ran out of the clearly visible cave entrance and headed off toward the other side of the mountain.

"Spiff!" Mort shouted. He and Fargle ran after their comrade and trailed close behind him. "Spiff," he repeated, "there is nowhere for us to go! It's just desert! Leadership can't get us out of-"

"Shush!" said Spiff, pausing his run for a moment, "I didn't think of that, until ten seconds ago, but five seconds ago I just remembered! That ship that passed overhead!"

"The… which?"

"That ship! Remember? We heard it outside only it wasn't there anymore when we went to go look! It must be around here somewhere, right?"

"It could be anywhere, you dolt!" Mort grumbled. "I mean, uh, you… person who gets too excited sometimes?"

"It _could _be anywhere," said Spiff, "but it _is _right there!" He pointed triumphantly.

Sure enough, there it was. It was a big, shiny, purple ship, large enough to fit several dozen people. Spiff marched right up to it, and grinned in pleasant surprise. He pointed to a large bit of lettering on the ships belly, which said:

ARPENHOLL SPACE ACADEMY

"Arpenholl?!" said Mort. "What are they doing here? Didn't they send _us _down because _they'd _never been here before?"

"Well, yeah," said Spiff. "But now that we've _been _down here, technically it means _they've _been down here, so they can send anybody that they please to."

"But why would they send _anybody _when they've already sent _us?_"

"_I _don't know!" Spiff yelled. "Because they know they can?"

Fargle thought for a moment. His eyes widened and he exclaimed, "It must be a rescue party!"

"A rescue party?" asked Mort. "Why would it be a rescue party? Nobody knows we're in trouble."

Fargle looked confused. "Yes, they do?" he replied. "We contacted them in jail, remember?"

Mort stared for a moment. "Oh. Oh yeah."

Spiff chuckled. "Oh boy. We're getting pretty tired, it seems. I'm tired too. We'd better get inside quick." He knocked on the hatch.

No answer.

Spiff knocked again. He called, "Hello? You're looking for us, right? We're right here!" He slammed the hatch hard enough to activate its spring-loads, opening it automatically.

Mort climbed up and took a look inside. "Doesn't look like anybody's in here!"

"What? That makes no sense…" Spiff pondered. He looked around the landscape. "If they've been here this long, they should have found us."

Mort responded, "They must be nearby. Let's take a look around."

They walked all around the ship and even inside it; there was definitely no one there. They walked halfway around the mountain then back then halfway again, but still nobody. They were just about ready to give up when-

"Guys," said Fargle, "I think I see them."

He'd have been ignored in the past, but Spiff and Mort knew better now. They looked right away… and wished they hadn't.

A Zorg ship had crept up from behind the mountain. The same one that had captured them before, by the looks of it. Behind it was another. Behind that one was another. Behind that one was another. And behind that one, was a few more.

Every ship had their heat shields raised, allowing the boys to see into the bridge. Though the ships were far away, they could still make out one tiny detail: Inside every ship were two or three captured human soldiers.

"...Zounds," said Spiff.


	20. Rescue

The fleet of Zorg ships sped towards Blue Lightning and began to fire. The three boys scattered, desperately leaping and diving away from the shots. Mort ran to the opposite side of the mountain, Spiff ran back inside their cave, and Fargle ran to hide behind the abandoned Arpenholl ship.

"Spaceman Spiff's brothers-in-arms have been captured!" said Spiff. Even in a situation like this, he was still narrating his own life. It kept him calm. "Now… where are my- uh, _his _partners?"

His question was partially answered when Mort came barging into the cave a minute later. A few blasts from the Zorg ships followed behind him, and only barely missed.

"Ah!" said Spiff. "There you are!"

"No time for chit-chat, Spiff," Mort replied. He carefully peeked back out into the desert. "I think they're getting away from us!"

"Getting away from _us?_" Spiff asked. "They're the ones doing the chasing! And if they get away, then that's-" He remembered the captured humans. "That's… ohhh, that's not good. Yeah, we've got to stop them. But where's-"

Mort ran out of the cave without even looking back.

"HEY!" Spiff chased after him. Luckily, Mort wasn't running so fast that he couldn't catch up.

Still sprinting, Spiff continued, "I SAID, where's Fargle? You seen him?"

"No, no," said Mort, "I (*pant*) haven't! No time to worry about him! Spaceships! Spaceships!"

"_Spaceships!_" Spiff agreed.

"Yes, I know! We've got to find the-" it was then that Mort noticed, and not a minute too soon, the two large Zorg ships flying right towards him.

"-the _**Spaceships!**_"

Sticking to their strengths, Mort and Spiff ran. They couldn't possibly hope to be faster than the ships, but they had no other options. They dashed toward a random direction, toward what looked like flat terrain; that is, it looked flat until the walls started sprouting up. Spiff and Mort realized that they'd run into a gulch, but they couldn't turn around- and they couldn't go forward, either: the gulch ended right ahead of them, at a dead end.

The boys skidded to a stop.

"We're-we're trapped!" Mort cried.

"No we're not!" Spiff retorted. He started looking all around him. "We're… we're… we're not trapped at all!" But no matter what wishful thoughts he thought, he could see no point of escape at all. Trapped, they were.

The Frap Ray Blasters on the ships' undersides began to glow. They were charging up their shots, and the boys had nowhere to run. In a moment it would be all over.

Just as the ships seemed ready to fire, a giant laser came down from the sky and melted them both in half. The Zorgs immediately fell into the squishy canyon, and the force of their impact made everything bounce a few times.

"Wh-what the he-e-ell was tha-at?" Mort asked.

"It must have been…" Spiff said, searching the sky for their strange savior. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw it slowly float into view. "It's… Its-!"

It was the _Blue Lightning. _Their ship, abandoned and forgotten in all the commotion, had returned to them.

Spiff squinted to see into the cockpit. Past the tint of the window and the glare of the sun, he could faintly see the pilot. It was Fargle.

A speaker popped out of the cockpit and crackled to life. "Blue Lightning team," it said in Fargle's voice, "Ha ha! Y-you are wanted for, uh, disturbing the peace! You'd (hee hee) better come with me!"

The _Blue Lightning_'s entrance hatch lowered, and Spiff and Mort climbed aboard. Laughing, they ran through the hall into the cockpit, and each put a hand on Fargle's shoulder.

"That was awesome, little man!" said Mort.

"I can't believe it. You saved our lives," said Spiff.

"It… It was nothing!" Fargle said modestly. "I j-just saw this thing here and-and-and I…"

"Ha ha, well, never mind that! We've got to get going!" Spiff interrupted. "Gotta catch up to those ships!"

Fargle began to blush and stammered, "Oh! Oh! Right! You're right, I'll just-" he started to get up from the pilot's seat – "I'll just let Mort take the controls, and then-"

"Hmm." said Mort. He stared at the controls as if he were in deep thought.

This was _not_ an answer Fargle expected. "What?"

"You know," said Mort, "I flew the whole way here. That's a whole lot of flying. I'm, uh, I'm a little tired. You're a pretty good pilot, right, little guy?"

"Um," said Fargle, "I, well, I… yes! I _am _pretty good! If… If I do say so myself…"

Mort winked. "Then maybe _you _should hold on to the controls for now, huh? Help us catch up to those bad guys?"

Fargle blushed some more, and grinned from ear to ear. It looked like his face was glowing. "Yeah! I should!" he exclaimed with joy. "Let's catch the bad guys! Let's- oh no, the _bad guys! _Uh, hang on!" he pushed down hard on the throttle and sped the ship off toward the Zorgs. Spiff and Mort barely managed to get in their seats.

The Zorg ships were flying straight up in a cross-shaped formation. There was nowhere for them to go but skyward. That could only mean one thing: They were going to leave the atmosphere.

"They're going into space," said Spiff. "What do you think that means?"

"Maybe they're going back to their planet," said Mort.

"Maybe they're going to Earth and picking up more humans!" said Fargle.

"Maybe we've gotta stop them no matter what they do," said Spiff. "Full speed ahead, Fargle!"

"Getting there, Cap'n!" said Fargle. The speedometer was, indeed, rising steadily. The _Blue Lightning _was moving so fast that the boys barely had any time to get into their seats.

All of the ship's thrust was devoted to moving forward, so there was nothing left to spin the ship and create artificial gravity; everything was floating. Luckily, the boys had all managed to strap-in in time, so they weren't going anywhere- but they still felt the sensation. Spiff found it exhilarating. Weightlessness felt as if all of the burdens he'd ever carried had been lifted off of his shoulders. This was a feeling he hoped – he _knew _– that he'd be experiencing again and again.

"This is amazing…" he said.

"It sure is," said Mort- "but _that's _not!" he pointed dead ahead.

_There_ were those ships they were after! It was a terrible, terrifying fleet of nasty Zorg vessels, even nastier than the ones that had almost fried Spiff and Mort. Even from afar, the boys could still see the captured humans in the cargo holds of the rear ships.

"Oh, man, how are we going to get to them?" said Mort.

Spiff thought.

"Well, I could try radioing them," said Fargle. "But I don't think they have the same communications tech as we do."

"Yeahhhh, probably not," said Mort. "That and, you know, they're a bunch of scary monsters. What are we gonna say? 'Hey, could you pretty please give us back our humans?'"

Fargle blushed. "Well… yeah… there's that too. Heh heh."

Spiff thought some more.

"Let's shoot at them," said Mort.

"With what?" asked Fargle. "The laser won't work on these things. I can tell from the shape of the armor that it's heat-proofed. And the laser's the only weapon we have!"

"Oh…" said Mort. "I didn't know that."

Spiff thought even more.

And it was then that Spiff thought back to his Final Test. He remembered how he'd been able to catch up with his teammates even though they were far ahead of him. How did he do that, again? Well, he had taken something out of his pocket… it had been small and square and flew faster than an angry hawk-

The inflatable jetpack!

"Mort," said Spiff, "do you know where this ship's tool closet is?" He clicked open his seatbelt and started floating up to the ceiling.

Mort blinked in surprise. "Uh, it's, uh, it's in the back of the ship," he replied. "At the end of the tail hallway. You can't miss it."

"Great. Wait here," said Spiff. He pushed off the ceiling, pushed off of the chair, and propelled himself out through the cockpit's door.

"Hey! Wait!" Mort protested. "What are you getting from-?" But he was already gone.

Spiff rocketed through the ship in record time.. He was surprised by the ease of zero-g travel; it was like swimming, but with a lot less limb movement. Sure enough, the closet was right there at the tail end of the ship, conveniently labeled "ASSORTED TOOLS".

"Alright! He's found it!" Spiff exclaimed. "Now all our hero has to do is open the door, and he'll-"

Dozens of tools spilled out into the hallway the second Spiff opened the closet up. One or two knocked against his head. He tried to climb into the closet itself, but tools kept coming out and pushing him back. Quite quickly, the whole area was "flooded" with various assorted bits of uselessness (well, useless for the current situation), and Spiff was forced to wade through them all.

"Hm…" he said. "Let's see- safety goggles (have 'em), latex gloves (I'm wearing better ones!), wrenches and hammers (too low-tech), breathing apparatus (ooh, I'll need this!), 12-pack of robot ants (what?), a saw shaped like a sausage, a grabber-claw, a scythe, a hammer… a-HA! Inflatable Jetpack!"

With a bit of difficulty, he got the pack onto his back and pushed off back towards the front of the ship. He didn't use the jet pack yet; he needed to conserve its power.

Once he reached the entrance area, where the ramp was located, he gave a quick radio signal: "Mort!" he said. "Do you have the airlocks on in the cockpit?"

Mort radioed back. "Uh, no, should I?"

"Yes!"

"Alright..."

Spiff heard the doors to the cockpit make a click.

"Thank you," said Spiff. He put on the breathing apparatus and flipped the "Ramp OPEN" switch.

Mort radioed, "Wait, why did you-?", before Spiff could hear no more. The vacuum had been opened. He was in outer space, with only a little jet pack to keep him from drifting.

He floated up to the ship's front windshield. Mort and Fargle saw him, and their jaws dropped. Fargle fumbled the controls in surprise and Mort nearly fell into the table. Neither of them even moved.

Spiff smirked, waved, and blasted off.

Luckily for Spiff, the thing actually WORKED in space. He hadn't been sure that it would. It was the only way he could think of to get to the Zorg ships in time. Speaking of the Zorg ships, they didn't seem to notice him at all; they were still lurching forward in formation. This have him an advantage and the element of surprise.

'Spaceman Spiff is closing in on his deadly enemies,' Spiff thought to himself (no talking in space). 'His poor human friends are in their cantankerous clutches! Can he reach them in-?"

A nearby Death Ray nearly hit him head on. He managed to maneuver around it (the things move pretty slowly in zero gravity), but clearly, he'd been spotted- and more would follow.

And sure enough, they did. Rays started coming toward him from every ship in the fleet. He was constantly rearranging his body position so he could blast over and under the shots. One grazed his hand and another, alarmingly, bumped against his cheek, though his breathing device was thankfully unharmed.

It wasn't long until he felt like he'd pulled something. Thankfully, he'd managed to get to the edge of the fleet, and the prison ships were all right in the back. Now it was a simple matter of getting onto one of them-

Suddenly they all turned on their backup thrusters and sped away!

'NO FAIR!' Spiff declared. He, too, activated full power, and sen himself careening down the barricade in an uncontrollable whirl.

Now he wasn't just dodging shots- he was dodging ships. They rammed into him, rammed into each other, changed courses, and made dangerous maneuvers. Some broke apart and others had huge gashes or dents seared into them. Every gun on every vessel was aimed his way and firing at full power. In short, they did everything they could to stop him.

But Spaceman Spiff cannot be stopped!

Alone, outgunned, in space- the boy was in his element. He was flipping and somersaulting through the blackness and he did backflips off the sides of the schooners. His gun didn't work in space, so he made good use of the enemy's instead, putting himself in gunner's sights only to dive out of the way and make them hit their fellow Zorgs instead. He though up a million snappy remarks to make, and quite regretted that he couldn't say any of them.

Finally, he reached the largest prison ship. It was child's play: he zoomed toward its lower hatch, gripped the side locks, and in a burst of adrenaline, ripped it clean off its hinges.

The room inside was a small storage area. Some blasters, some fuel, and some food. Nobody was inside, but he was quite sure that the crew was after him. He grabbed two guns, strung them to his back, and opened the other door.

On the opposite side were two hulking Zorg guards. 'I hate it when I'm right!' he thought to himself, half-serious.

It was at this point that he realized the ship had no artificial gravity to speak of, but no matter; he was already an expert at zero-g movement. He flipped himself over, launched up to the ceiling, and managed to fire the guns on his back (remembering that his own wouldn't work on their armor). It hit one of them in the crotch and put them out of commission; the next hit the other in the head, and knocked them out too. Spiff would've done the old spin-the-gun-and-holster-it trick, if he wasn't in zero g.

"Okay, now Spiff has to find his comrades' cage," he said, out loud once more. It felt nice to be able to talk to himself again. A few minutes of forced silence was a few minutes too many.

He searched the now-empty corridor for the right doorway. He expected something tall, solid and impenetrable- something that no prisoner could escape from. The Zorgs weren't the brightest bulbs in the galaxy, but they _must _have been good at keeping prisoners, or else they all would have escap-

Oh. No, wait, there it was. A short, slight little door, looking pretty easy to break open. There was even a barred window on it. Spiff peeked his head through it and smiled.

A small group of tough-looking astronauts were floating, nearly motionless, on the other side. They were all already looking at the door when Spiff poked his head in- clearly, they'd been expecting his arrival. They started clapping, hooting, and cheering. A few even chanted Spiff's name.

"Special delivery!" said Spiff. He unstrapped the guns from his back and tossed them into the room, and the two soldiers nearest to the door immediately snatched them up.

The cheers continuing, Spiff soared back into the armory, took two more guns out, and tossed them again back into the cell. He made close to a dozen trips this way, and each time he came back, there were fewer prisoners in the cell- and fewer Zorgs in the halls. It wasn't long until the humans had totally overwhelmed the aliens.

On his thirteenth trip into the cell, he saw only one person remaining. It was Awol.

Spiff entered and billowed up to him immediately. He stretched out his hand and said, a little loudly so he could be heard over the noise, "it's a pleasure to see you again, Sergeant! Thank you for coming to our rescue- pretty funny that _I _ended up having to save _you, _huh?"

Awol kept stoic for a moment. He seemed to study Spiff's face. He moved his eyes over the boy's mouth, and nose, and eyes, and then his spiky hair. And then he said, "Spiff, I have never said this to another recruit in my life. I am _proud_ of you. No matter your personal hang-ups, you have shown more cunning, bravery, and sheer creativity than any other member of this organization I have ever worked with. You make me love my job, Spiff- and I hate my job. You've broken every rule in the book and have replaced them with new ones. You've saved more lives in one mission than any Spaceman has saved in an entire career. You're going to be more than a Spaceman, you're going to be a legend. They're going to right _books _about you, little boy- and that's book**s**, plural, and more than just a few."

The silence stayed for a moment as the boy and the man stayed locked in each other's eyes.

"...thank you," Spiff said. "Now. Let's get out of here." He unlatched the two guns from his back and handed them to Awol.

"Absolutely." said Awol. Without another word, he flowed out of the cell and pushed along to the front of the ship- to the cockpit.

He waltzed straight through the door, floated past the various crew members (who were all already captured), floated right up to the hulking, enraged, and powerless captain, and placed his gun directly on its chest.

"My name is Migget Awol," he said, "and you are all under arrest!"


	21. It Starts

Well, after that, everything wrapped up nicely. The humans all escaped from the Zorg's clutches and returned to Arpenholl, with plenty of fresh knowledge regarding their enemies. Though the mission hadn't turned out as expected, and suffered an unexpected casualty, it still managed to turn out well- humanity was safe from being eaten, for now anyway, and it was all thanks to Spiff.

And now, a week later, he was standing on a small pedestal on a moderately sized stage before a massive audience. The rest of Blue Lightning was standing with him, and standing at a podium off to the side, beaming, was Awol.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "We are all gathered here today to honor a very brave group of very young men. You wouldn't expect much of them, but if not for their efforts, our elite team of Rescue Roamers would be dead, and, possibly, so would many more humans."

The audience erupted into applause. Fargle and Mort saw their families in the audience, hooting and hollering and glowing with pride, and their wide smiles grew a little wider. (Spiff's parents were not in attendance.)

"First," said Awol, "We want to honor Mort Drucker and Fargle Wilbur!"

The audience – and Mort & Fargle's parents – cheered yet again.

"For their astounding bravery, intellect, and grace under pressure," Awol continued, "the Academy has decided to award them both with Silver Medals!"

He pulled them out from under his podium and reached out toward them. They came forward and allowed him to place them around their necks, then cheerfully returned to their pedestals.

Next Awol reached under his podium and pulled out a small, golden medal and a small, brown, fuzzy patch. His smile suddenly faded, and he hesitated for a moment.

"Oh… right. Could the parents of Rolf Weltraum come up to the stage, please?"

A solemn middle-aged couple left their seats and walked to the stage. Neither of them said anything, or looked Awol in the eye.

"Mr. and Mrs. Weltraum," said Awol, "your son's sacrifice was a tragedy we hope will never be repeated. He was a wonderfully smart boy, and had a great future ahead of him. He helped save many people, and for that, we are honoring him with a posthumous Gold Medal and a Memorial Patch. Here- take it."

They did so. The audience applauded loudly. The Weltraums, despite their grief, couldn't help smiling in pride. As they returned to their seats, other members of the audience hooted and cheered and patted them on the backs, with words of support and comfort from all.

"Next," said Awol, "is another individual well worthy of our respect, and I suppose you already know him-"

Spiff had already bounded up right next to him. "What're you giving me, Migget?!" he exclaimed.

The audience laughed. Awol looked flustered. "As- as I was saying, everyone," he said with a little giggle of his own, "this is Spiff, and he's the biggest hero I've ever met. There's not much of him, but he makes up for it in talent and courage. If not for him, I'd be dead- and I'll never forget it. I didn't believe in Spiff at first, and that's a mistake I'll never repeat again. Spiff, you have more than earned your Platinum medal, the highest honor we can bestow."

Spiff snatched the medal right out of his hands and skipped back to his pedestal to uproarious cheers.

"And finally," Awol shouted to die the crowd down, "I'd like to welcome Commander Farerr to the stage."

Spiff was taken aback. Farerr was the commander of the entire Space Force. She never made personal appearances unless it was something very important. And there she was, walking up to Awol's podium!

"My friends," she began, "Spiff, Mort, and Fargle are very unique boys of immeasurable skill. Their talents should not and can not go to waste. So, with that in mind, we've decided to immediately promote these heroes to their desired ranks of-"

The audience was already roaring. Spiff was jumping up and down and Mort and Fargle were erupting in glee.

"-of Spacemen and assistant Roamer!" Farerr continued.

"YES!" Spiff shouted in joy. "Wait- which one's the assistant Roamer? That's not _me, _is it?"

Fargle chuckled. "I think that's me, Spiff," he said, "I wrote down that I wanted that job when I joined the Academy."

Farerr nodded. "You're right, Mr. Wilbur," said Farerr. "You've been assigned to the roamer Russell White." She pulled out a slip of paper. "Here is his door number- go and meet with him now, will you?"

Fargle excitedly took the slip from her and walked off to meet with his new boss.

"Uh, Fargle Wilbur, everybody!" Awol shouted. The audience clapped for him.

"And now," said Farerr, "I'd like it if we could all walk down to the hangar and see Spiff and Mort off."

The boys (and the audience) gasped.

"Yes," said Farerr, "they're on immediate assignment!"

"We're _what?_" asked Mort. "We can't possibly-" Spiff stomped his foot.

"We've discovered," Farerr said, "an entirely new planet system, and we need a couple of good, brave Spacemen to investigate it. Boys -" She turned to them and beckoned them to come to her side, which they did – "Do you pledge to boldly search for intelligent life or other weirdness out in the furthest reaches of space?"

Mort tentatively, and Spiff enthusiastically, exclaimed, "Yes!"

"Then come with me!" said Farerr. "We're seeing you off in the hangar! This way, the door's just over here…"

More applause. With wild abandon, and with great difficulty (there being so many of them), the crowd flowed into the hangar, with Farerr, Spiff, and Mort leading them.

"Now," Farerr explained as they walked, "you've each been assigned a traditional Spaceman saucer, which is a one-man, owing to the job. They've each been equipped with brand new Frap Ray Blasters, which we've just reverse-engineered from those Zorg you defeated. Your weapon will be the highly advanced Atomic Napalm Neutralizer, our most powerful gun. As you might have already guessed, you'll be keeping your Blue Lightning uniforms- we're retiring the name anyway. Is that all understood?"

"Understood, Madam," said Spiff.

"Good. Then godspeed!"

They'd arrived in the hangar, and the glorious sound of innumerable shouts erupted. The entire population of the station was cheering Mort and Spiff on. The two boys turned to each other, the same mischievous grin on both faces.

"You ready, pal?" asked Mort.

"Always!" said Spiff.

The cheers grew ever louder as Mort and Spiff marched arm-in-arm to their own special ships. They were identical, aside from Mort's being blue and Spiff's being a bright, vibrant, gorgeous crimson; each fit for only a pilot and featuring a reverse-engineered Frap Ray Blaster, just like Farerr said. As Mort said one final goodbye to his family, Spiff climbed into his ship, unlocked the "ON" button, and pressed it.

The engines fired up. The computer systems turned on and Spiff's cockpit began to hum a glorious hum. Spiff lovingly moved his hands along the control panel. He was behind the wheel of a spaceship, as a Spaceman, at long last.

He turned back to Mort, gave his friend one final salute (receiving one in return), and pushed down hard on the throttle. The ship boosted fast out into the airlock, and then faster beyond, out into the furthest reaches of space…

THE BEGINNING


End file.
